Unlikely Heroes: The Harpy Queen Skrch
by SickleYield
Summary: Now complete! Fourth and final in a series about the heroes who are not related to Jaina, have never met Thrall, and are never going to make the Lich King's To Do list. Rated for violence and thematic elements.
1. Chapter 1

Unlikely Heroes: The Harpy Queen Skrch

Introductory Note:

This story is fourth in a series set more or less between WCIII and WoW. It helps if you've read the Phage Marrowice and Veren Redmorning entries, but it's not necessary. I've treated the harpies more like WCIII harpies than WoW, for those who notice that sort of thing. This is why they are covered with feathers rather than looking like, oh, hairless supermodels in thongs. As usual, my policy is that if there is no official Blizzard explanation, I am allowed to make things up. So unless you are Lorok, who by frequent help and useful criticism has earned the right, do not email and try to tell me Fel Orcs can't turn gray or that harpies do not reproduce the same way as _Daphnia longispina_, because I will laugh at you.

Thanks for reading, ladies and gentlemen and parthenogenetic organisms of all ages!

Chapter 1

It was another hot day in the Barrens of Kalimdor.

Most days in the Barrens were fairly warm, even at the tail end of the year. One watching the herd of kodos graze close to a grove of palm trees would never guess that it was nearly the end of winter and the beginning of spring. (As Humans and Orcs count it, at least. The kodos are not generally consulted, the Elves tend to be reticent, and the Undead are not known to concern themselves excessively with dates.)

This particular group of kodos was not large. Perhaps ten of the lumbering gray reptiles grazed in and around the grove. Given that kodos are not strictly herbivorous, it may be preferable not to mention exactly what they grazed on.

One smallish specimen wandered out of the shade in pursuit of a particularly succulent tidbit. (For the sake of taste, the author will refrain from identifying this tidbit as, for example, an unusually slow rat.)

The kodo was chomping busily when it noticed the shadow passing over the ground in front of it. As the patch of darkness wheeled in place, a very old instinct recognized the shape of feathered wings. A mesh pattern stretched between the two separate sets of whirling pinions, making a peculiar shadow.

Birds circled over the kodos almost all the time. Mostly they were too small to give any trouble to a two-thousand-pound animal with a sharp horn, a heavy but agile tail, and an impressively strong jaw. So the kodo did not bother to look up, and it ignored the niggling of age-old instinct that suggested something was not quite right.

It might have been a better idea to take note of the sound of quibbling voices, speaking a language the kodo would not have understood even had its brain been rather larger than it was.

"Scrrr-AH! Quit pulling!"

The creature might have been mistaken for a bird, silhouetted against the harsh sky. A human would have recognized the shape of the head and the breasts, the front-facing knees that no bird would ever have, but kodos are not quite this bright. Besides, this particular herd had been rather lucky thus far and so the concepts of _wings _and _feathers _still belonged only to the overarching idea of _birds._

Even a kodo's luck can change rather suddenly.

"Look, this was _your _stupid idea. _I _said we should just dive down and scratch its eyes out." This harpy flew a little higher than the other as they circled, her larger wings holding her up with greater ease. Her pinions were brown.

"We did that last time," said the smaller harpy. The feathers that kept her from being quite naked were blue in color. "I'm bored with the noise they make. Besides, isn't Mother always saying we should try to think creatively?"

"How about the time you magicked one to sleep and I clawed its heart out?" the brown harpy said hopefully.

"That was too creative," the blue harpy said, panting with the effort of holding up her half of the burden. "She found out."

"Scrrr. Right. Fine. Can we drop it now?"

"Fine."

The two harpies each let go of one corner of the large spider web they carried. A rock as large as a harpy's head tumbled out of the rough net and plummeted straight down.

There was a _crunch._ The kodo squealed. Then it fell over.

The two harpies hovered improbably in place, flapping their wings slowly. They let go of the web. It drifted down, light as a leaf.

"That wasn't very much fun," the brown one said critically.

"I suppose we'd better eat part of it," the blue one said. "So we can tell Mother we _Aaaaa!_"

The two went head-over-talons in different directions as the backwash from giant wings tumbled them out of the air. They righted themselves in time to see a much larger creature circling their kill, gliding on pinions of sunset red.

The harpy queen Skrch glumly inspected the dead kodo. A mane of crimson feathers streamed behind her in the wind. This was picturesque, but also perennially inconvenient, given that it is not technically possible to braid feathers and hardly easier to trim them with talons.

"Not _again,_" groaned Skrch. "I can't leave you alone for five minutes without finding something dead afterwards…"

"We were going to eat it!" said her youngest daughter Ckkk.

"Yeah," said Vrawk.

Skrch raised a crimson eyebrow. "All of it?" said her powerful soprano. It carried very well over the prevailing updraft.

Her children avoided her eyes as they hovered in place. "We were going to share," ventured Ckkk, the blue storm hag with the clever ideas.

"With everyone?" Skrch said.

"Yes," Ckkk said virtuously.

Skrch rolled her eyes. "How were you going to get it back to the nest, exactly?"

Guilty silence followed.

"I _thought _so," Skrch said. "Well, you can just help me carry it back, then."

"But it weighs half a _ton,_" Vrawk said. "Even the _little _ones are heavy."

"Then you should have thought of that before you dropped a rock on its head!" Skrch snapped. She flexed her talons. "We'll have to do it in bits. And if I catch either one of you eating the liver _or _the brain, I will bat you so hard you'll hit the ground in Orgrimmar. Jhha?"

"Jhha, Mother," said her children.

"It's not like it's any good raw, anyway," said Ckkk.

"Spoiled you, that's what I've done," Skrch said, lighting on the kodo's side. "It's what I get for rearing every single one of you, instead of eating the smaller ones like any sane queen would do." She held her tail feathers up out of the way as she extended a fingerlike wing-talon and made a careful incision. "What I deserve for going to all this trouble to try and raise smart fledglings, the kind that are going to survive to grow up and not get shot down for doing something evil and stupid."

The kodos began to edge toward the other end of the grove as the wind changed, carrying the harpy's scent to them.

"And instead I get you," Skrch went on. "And four more just like you, _and _two eggs that are going to turn out just the same when they hatch. Why did _I _have to be a queen?" She finished bisecting the kodo. The spine gave her some trouble, but she used her foot talons as well as the ones on her wings. Skrch had very sharp claws.

_Why not my sister? _she wondered silently, for the thousandth time. _Krrik would have loved having a horde of bloodthirsty little krrrahk following her everywhere. But nooo, _she _ended up a rogue. _She's _sitting on a nest full of pretties while _I'm _lucky to have a couple of old shields to line my bed with._

"Scrrr," Skrch muttered. The ancient curse had no translation, but might possibly have once meant something like _pull out my feathers and boil me in oil_.

"Sorry, Mother," Ckkk said tentatively. "We won't do it again."

"You said that last time," Skrch said, but without anger. There was no point in being angry with them. It never got anywhere. She wrapped her lower talons around the kodo's spine and hoisted its severed front half as she lunged skyward.

It takes a certain degree of magic for a creature with pinions to hover in place, and rather more for it to survive with hollow bones and human knees. A certain element of extranatural power was also required in order for Skrch, weighing less than a hundred pounds, to hoist five hundred pounds of dead weight. Be the flight muscles ever so steely, five hundred pounds is five hundred pounds.

Skrch lumbered through the air back toward her nest, some five miles as the harpy flies from where her daughters had been trying out their new game. Behind her, Ckkk and Vrawk carried the kodo's other half between them. There was much argument as their wings occasionally got in each others' way.

The harpy queen panted. The sun was hot, though noon was still hours away. The Barrens stretched out in front of her. The way to her nest was strewn with rocks, and towering trees, and a gray Orc on a wolf trying to fight off five centaurs.

"A _what_?" Skrch said aloud. She turned in air, which was difficult carrying half a dead kodo, and wheeled in for a closer look.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

As she dipped in closer, Skrch saw that there were, in fact, more than five centaurs. The other six, lying in various stages of disembowelment, were not likely to threaten the Orc any longer. Some of the bodies lay in the shadow of the outcrop of rock that the Orc had chosen for his last stand.

_One gray Orc and eleven centaurs,_ she thought. There were no other Orcs nearby, alive or dead. The rider on the wolf bled in several places, staining his lighter gray trousers, and the smell of blood rose on the wind as Skrch circled. The Orc had lost his helmet, and a long black braid whipped around as he batted down another arrow with his scimitar.

A centaur drudge looked up as Skrch's shadow covered him.

"Harpy!" he called in the Common tongue. His voice was a coarse baritone. "The Orc's got a fat purse of gold. Help us kill it and we'll share it with you!"

"It's got shinies?" Vrawk said from behind Skrch. She said it in Saark, so the creatures below heard only a raptor shriek.

"Can we kill it?" Ckkk said.

Skrch reluctantly gave up any hope of getting home soon. She let go of her half a kodo. It hit the ground far below with a wet _thunk, _producing a nervous start from the centaurs.

"Here's a good time to use your heads, little krrrahk," she said to her daughters. "Six of the centaurs are dead, and this one warrior is still alive. And two of the centaurs have bows, which they could use on us as easily as on the Orc. Who doesn't, by the way, have a purse that I can see. What does that tell you?"

"The centaurs are liars?" suggested Ckkk after a moment's thought. "They can't kill the Orc, so they want us to?"

"Jhha," Skrch agreed. "And what do you see _all _the centaurs carrying?"

"Belts… With purses?" Vrawk said. Skrch could almost hear the tiny wheels turning in her head. "_They _have pretties?"

"Jhha!" said Ckkk. "Let's kill them!"

"Very good," Skrch said. "Kill them."

She sighed at the shriek of delight this produced. _They really are hopeless. _Then she pulled in the mana from around herself, condensed it into the air, and blew the nearest centaur archer up into a cyclone.

Ckkk and Vrawk dropped their half kodo onto another centaur. As usual, their aim was very good. Five hundred pounds of meat traveling at high speed struck the second archer directly in the head. He seemed unlikely to get up again afterwards.

The Orc did not hesitate to take advantage of the distraction. The wolf lunged forward, and the centaur drudge lost his arm and shortly thereafter his head. The gray Orc easily parried a javelin thrust from another centaur at about the same time that Ckkk's sleep spell hit the fifth and last one.

Skrch watched as her cyclone started to subside. She hovered over the miniature tornado as it spun down into nothing, depositing a very dizzy centaur on the ground. Then she folded her wings and dove.

Air rushed past her ears as she watched the centaur zooming closer. At precisely the correct second she spread her tail feathers and her wings, braking sharply in the manner known to raptors the world over since the beginning of time. Her momentum was only partly canceled, but her direction changed sufficiently that her claws drove straight into the centaur's face.

The result was not pretty. Skrch alighted beside the body as it thudded to the ground. She tried to wipe the gore off her talons in the dust. This resulted, not surprisingly, in dirtier talons.

"Ugh," she said. "Are they all dead yet?"

"Jhha, Mother," her daughters chorused.

"Except the Orc," Vrawk said. "Were we supposed to kill the Orc?"

"_Hhek,_" Skrch said. "Leave him alone. Unless he starts attacking us."

"Can we get some shinies now?" Ckkk said.

"Fine, go ahead. Just make _sure _they're dead before you get inside their reach, all right?"

Skrch stalked across the ground to the edge of the tall grass and wiped her talons on that. This was slightly more effective. She turned to see the Orc sitting slumped in his saddle, breathing hard. He still held his scimitar, but his knuckles were white with the effort.

"Well?" the Orc said, as he saw the harpy watching him.

"We're not going to attack you. I, at least, am not stupid," Skrch said. She turned and walked over toward her half a kodo. "And yes, you're welcome, and yes, I _do _speak Orcish very well for a devil bird woman, thank you so _very _much. Why are you gray, by the way?"

Ckkk and Vrawk were busy rifling the centaurs' belts and purses. Skrch had been right: they were carrying any number of pretties, both in coin and jewelry. The harpy queen prodded her dead kodo unhappily. It had suffered somewhat on its plunging flight, and was now both battered and dirty.

From the corner of her eye she saw the Orc put away the scimitar. He did not take his eyes from Skrch as he pulled off his belt and started to tighten it around his right thigh. The flow of blood had already soaked his trouser leg.

"I'm with… The Tattered Banner Clan," he said. "We're not… From here…" His voice sounded more or less like any other Orc's voice, gruff and low, except that he had an odd accent.

_And he's getting weaker by the minute._

"Lost a lot of blood, have you?" Skrch abandoned the carcass and moved closer to the Orc, picking her way delicately between dead centaurs. "You must be quite a fighter, for such a skinny Orc."

"Un huh," the Orc said. The wolf growled.

"I'm not meaning any harm," Skrch said. "Like I said, I'm not stupid."

She concentrated on the mana again. Then she clapped her wing talons together over her head.

Golden rings swirled up out of nowhere, spinning around the Orc and the wolf. Skrch watched with satisfaction as the Orc's wounds began to close, the notches on his bare chest knitting together at their edges. She leapt from the ground and went to perch on the rock outcrop to the Orc's left. He turned laboriously in his seat, watching in suspicion and dawning surprise.

"My fledglings and I have killed your enemies," she said. "I've seen to it that you won't die from your wounds. We want the centaurs' jewelry and their weapons, and I'll give you ten percent of the gold." She ignored her daughters' protests in Saark. "Fair?"

"Fair… Enough," the gray Orc said.

_He must be worse off than I thought._ Skrch eyed the Orc thoughtfully.

"Good." She turned to look down at her fledglings, switching back to Saark. "You two, go get all your sisters. We want to get all this back to the nest as fast as may be, understand?"

"Can I keep it?" Ckkk asked hopefully, holding up a gold chain. "It's really shiny."

"I suppose," Skrch said. "One _each._ Now go. And be careful."

Ckkk and Vrawk quickly picked out a trinket apiece and hurled themselves skyward. A moment later, their frantically flapping silhouettes dwindled out of view.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Anybody else think the WoWWiki explanation of harpy reproduction is a bit stupid, or is it just us biology majors?

Chapter 3

Skrch settled herself more comfortably on the shoulder of stone.

"My krrrahk – that is, my daughters will be back to collect our share," she said. "If I were you, I'd start building a fire. You're going to want a wash soon. Or don't gray Orcs wash?"

"Ungh?" said the Orc. He clung to the wolf's mane with both hands now, trying to stay upright.

"Jhha," Skrch said. "I mean, right. Let's think about this." She rustled her feathers. "By accident or on purpose, you've found a place with water. The spring is just round the other side of the outcrop. If you can manage to stay on long enough for your animal to get you there, I think you'll find yourself better off."

The Orc raised his head. His eyes made deep, dark slits in his narrow face.

"Why do… You care, storm witch?" he said. "Who… _Are _you?"

"Oh, sorry. I'm Skrch," she said. "The daughter of Skrch and some Elf, who was the daughter of Skrch and some Human, and so on. If I ever manage to hatch a queen, it will be her name, too. Given that the idea of seducing someone with no feathers holds no appeal, it seems pretty likely I'll go on having storm hags and wind witches and rogues."

"Huh?" said the Orc.

"Right," Skrch sighed. "Blood loss. What's your name, warrior?"

"Dev Blackstare," the Orc said.

"Very apt. You have a water skin?"

"Un huh."

"Then drink something. You're probably overheated, too. I haven't seen an Orc move that fast too many times, or I'd be out a few more fledglings, I can tell you that."

The Orc fumbled out a skin bottle and drank. It must have been half empty, because it did not last long. He moved one knee, and the wolf turned and trotted around the edge of the outcrop. Skrch hopped up over the top to look down on the spring on the other side. Water ran down out of the rock into a small pool. The sun fell full on it now, and would until the afternoon.

_I'll be surprised if he can stay conscious long enough to get himself cleaned up and back into the shade, _she thought, watching the Orc struggle down out of his saddle. _So unless the wolf is smart enough to drag him back around the rock, they'll probably both be dead from heat stroke before evening._

She glanced upward. She wasn't the only one to have thought of it. A couple of vultures circled, higher up than any harpy would fly.

The logical thing to do, the _harpy _thing, was to wait until they were dead, then feed them both to her hungry krrrahk. Or, since she'd more or less spoilt her children as far as eating sentient flesh was concerned, at least keep Blackstare's ten percent and steal his shiny scimitar to line her nest with the rest of the loot.

"The harpy thing would've been to kill him instead of the centaurs to begin with," Skrch muttered in Saark. "And it would have been stupid also, because then _they _would've kept all the shinies. Which are now _mine._"

No, she'd stick to doing things the smart way. It had never failed her before. At twenty-three she'd outlived all her siblings except Krrik, and given that harpies produce two eggs a year, that was a great many dead sisters.

_And far too many fledglings dead or lost,_ Skrch thought.

She did her best, she really did. The trouble was that Skrch was not at all normal. And too many of her offspring, fatherless though they were, seemed to be exactly that.

_I wonder if I'm not turning the eggs often enough. _

A sound drew her attention back to Dev Blackstare. The Orc was on his knees, awkwardly slurping water from his cupped hand. _So he can still watch his surroundings, _Skrch recognized.

"Rangy, tough and suspicious," Skrch said. "You know, I could start to like you, Mister Gray Orc?"

"Think you've… Got hold of a… Wrong idea," Blackstare said with difficulty.

"Oh? What's that?"

"Not male," Blackstare said, and fell over into the pool.

The wolf delicately seized hold on the Orc's sword harness and tugged him – her? – out of the water.

"Huh," Skrch said. She glided down and into the branches of the nearest palm tree, some fifty yards away. Between the fronds, she saw the wolf standing over the skinny Orc. The animal made no move to run away, but it did not seem about to drag its rider to shelter, either. Its tongue lolled in the heat.

"Stupid wolf," Skrch said. "Catch _me _riding something with a brain smaller than mine." She splayed her right wing-talons and sliced through the stem of a palm branch. It crashed down to the ground. She reached for another one.

"And _especially _not something with a brain smaller than a krrrahk." Skrch paused in her monologue. "I suppose that's an unfair insult to wolves, actually. Gods know, I've had to drag Vrawk in out of the sun often enough…"

_---_

A couple of hours later, the centaurs lay in an uneven pile downwind and downhill from the spring. The mound was dimly visible on the other side of the partly-defoliated palm trees. Given the Barren's healthy population of scavengers, Skrch did not expect the corpses to remain for long.

She had sent her brood back to the nest to watch the eggs and play with their new loot. With any luck, none of them would cut themselves on the sharp things._ Besides, you'd think after what happened to Strrri they'd know better._

Skrch sat on a jagged protrusion from the outcrop, watching the awkward lean-to her krrrahk had built from palm leaves. She'd made sure the Orc's ten percent was neatly stacked outside the ramshackle little structure. No amount of maternal supervision could make it come out quite right, but it was adequate to its purpose. Dev Blackstare lay under it, sleeping the sleep of the weak and exhausted, and the wolf lay in its shadow and watched.

"Maybe I underestimated your intelligence," Skrch told the wolf, speaking Orcish. "You _did _let me put her in the shade."

The rangy creature did not deign to answer this.

"And take her belt off her leg so it wouldn't cut off the blood to her foot. I did that, too," Skrch said.

The wolf blew air from its nostrils.

"Hmph," Skrch said. "I can't imagine why she puts up with you."

The wolf bared its teeth, by way of indicating that there were other reasons for its presence besides congenial conversation.

"Sure there are," Skrch muttered. She hopped off her perch and flapped upward to look around. If anything was going be bothering the Orc, after she'd gone to all this trouble, she wanted to know in advance.

Vultures were already having a field day with the centaurs. They ate faster as her giant shadow fell over them, in case she was going to land and take away their prize. Skrch tried not to think about how long it had been since she'd had any liver. _The krrrahk needed that kodo more than you did, _she told herself firmly.

A few four-legged creatures were at work in the corpse pile as well.

Two of them appeared to be corpses themselves.

"What?" Skrch said aloud, and circled in for a closer look.

They bore scant resemblance to anything else she had ever seen. They went on all fours, and their movements were almost catlike, but their limbs were wrong. They might have been Humans, distorted and shriveled in the sun, except for their bizarrely long claws and teeth.

Someone had tied scraps of brown fabric around the rib bones that stuck out of their parchment-dry skin. Skrch had the feeling they hadn't done it themselves.

"And what, exactly, are you?" Skrch said.

The two creatures looked up at the sound of her voice. One rose to look at her, swaying on its hind legs as it flexed its front claws. The other went on trying to pull an intact centaur out of the pile, swatting at a hopeful coyote as it tried to nose its way in.

"Hnaaaargh?" said the first dead thing.

"What are you going to do with that?" Skrch said, pausing to hover over them. "Eat it later?"

It hopped experimentally up and down, but came nowhere near Skrch's height above the ground. It cocked its head at her. The sun glinted slickly on its milky eyes.

"Hnooooo," the creature said. Skrch blinked.

"You speak Common?"

"Aaargh."

"I see," Skrch said. "So what _are _you going to do with it?"

"Maaaake mooooore," said the dead thing.

Then it turned to help the other one. Skrch watched as they dragged it off toward the East. They were apparently stronger than their desiccated appearance would suggest, because they did it very quickly.

By the time she got back to the lean-to, Dev Blackstare was awake.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Skrch tipped her wings back and spread her tail feathers as she reached for the ground. She ran a few rapid, hopping steps before coming to a stop. The breeze from her wings rustled the leaves on the lean-to, but the Orc was not inside it.

Dev Blackstare knelt beside the pool, wringing out her wet hair. The blood was gone from her dull gray skin, though her trousers would probably never be the same. She turned to watch the harpy land.

"What did you do while I was out?" she said abruptly. It really was difficult to tell the Orc was female. Her voice was deeper than any Human woman Skrch had ever heard, and certainly far more than a harpy's.

"Built a shelter," Skrch said. "Also put you in it, since your wolf isn't that bright."

The wolf, now occupying the shady spot Dev Blackstare had left, made a huffing noise.

"And?" Blackstare began plaiting her hair into a braid.

"And flew up to take a look around," Skrch said.

"My belt was unfastened when I woke up," the Orc growled.

"Yes, unfastened from around your _leg,_" Skrch said. "Or don't you remember that, either? It's not easy to manage a buckle with talons."

"Oh." The Orc splashed water on her face, evidently not for the first time. She shook her head, then looked as if she regretted it.

"Sorry," Blackstare said after a moment.

"And I checked to see if you were really female, of course," Skrch said.

"I _knew _it." Blackstare's head jerked around to glare at Skrch. The harpy queen, who had by now been glared at by nearly every species in the Barrens plus all of her own offspring at once, remained unfazed.

"What, I was supposed to take your word for it?" Skrch said. "All I did was look. You're walking around shirtless, you're completely flat, and you've got that big jaw. You look like a man-Orc."

"That's not a word," Blackstare said.

"It is for the green Orcs."

"It isn't for the Tattered Banner," Blackstare said.

"Then how do you distinguish between the Orcs who have the babies and the ones who do the fighting?"

"We don't," Dev said. "We're Orcs. That's all. What do you mean, flat?"

Skrch looked pointedly down at her own chest. "You're missing some things."

"No, I am _not,_" Blackstare said. She stood up, started to sway, and checked herself with a visible effort.

"All the wo – Orcs of your gender I've seen had enough bosom to require coverage," Skrch said. "You should get out of the sun. It can kill you, you know."

"Yours isn't covered," the Orc pointed out as she moved stiffly back to the lean-to. She shoved the wolf unceremoniously aside as she sat down. "Go on, Daysleeper." The animal stood next to the lean-to and watched the Orc sit down.

"Mine has _feathers._ It's not _naked_," Skrch said. She folded back her wings and crouched in front of the lean-to so she could see the Orc.

"Hmph," Dev Blackstare said. "I heard the green Orcs were different, but I didn't think they looked like Humans."

"Oh, you still can't mistake them for Humans, even from up in the air," Skrch said. "How's your head, by the way? Most things get a pretty good headache sitting around in the sun after losing a few pints of blood."

"Un huh," Blackstare said. "Why did you do this?" She waved a callused hand at the shelter. "You could've killed me while I was out and just kept the gold. With all your fledglings, Daysleeper couldn't stop you."

"I try not to do things that are stupid when I can avoid it," Skrch said. "The green Orcs and Humans and, let's see, the phoenixes and razormanes already try to kill me whenever they see me. I don't want to add to my list of natural enemies if I can avoid it." She shifted from foot to foot where she squatted in front of the lean-to. "Besides, you've made me rich, as harpies count it. I've got enough pretties now that I just about need a bigger nest to hold them all. I won't forget that quickly."

"What do you do with them?" Blackstare said.

Skrch looked at her blankly. "What do you mean? They're shiny. You keep them. It's what they're for."

"You never spend them? Sell them?"

"If food is _really _scarce," Skrch said reluctantly. "But not if I can help it." She was pleased to note that the Orc had already stowed her share of the gold. _It's too distracting otherwise._

"So where were you going?" Skrch asked.

The Orc shrugged. "Scouting for the clan. We're covering as much territory as we can, so the Chieftain will know what this place is like. What enemies we'll meet. Like that."

"So how'd you fall foul of the centaurs? Even I could see you weren't carrying anything worth stealing. Why'd they want to kill you enough to try and make a deal with a harpy?"

"Probably because we've killed a good three dozen of them since we set up our village," Blackstare said. "They keep trying to raid us."

"Centaurs hate a tough mark," Skrch said. "At least, the ones you find roaming around do. Mostly they don't get along with the Orcs, either. From up high I've seen them tanning centaur hides to use as rugs."

"That's disgusting," Blackstare said.

"And it smells terrible," Skrch said.

"Worse than live centaurs?" Dev said.

"Hmmm." Skrch looked over toward the corpse pile, which was now much smaller than before. "Not much. Some of the more civilized ones bathe, but I'm afraid that's not a word you could use to describe this particular group. Besides, water's scarce out here."

"I'll bet you know where to find it," Blackstare said, looking at her closely. She held her eyes wider in the shade, but they were still too dark to distinguish anything of pupil or iris.

"Within twenty miles or so of the nest," Skrch said. "I have to. I can't drink much at a time if I'm going to stay in the air – too much weight. So when I need a drink, I need one right away."

"Could you show me? The Clan will need to know."

"Not the nest," Skrch said. "I haven't known you that long. But I'll show you the water, if you want. Not today, though. You still need some time before you can survive wandering around in the sun. Trust me. I've been hatching out little krrrahk since I was sixteen or so, and I've lost any number of the little devils to sunstroke."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It is the usual custom of harpies to build freestanding nests. Whether they prefer the flexibility this gives them regarding location, or whether the species retains some dim memory of when they were Elves and built domiciles on the ground, no one lives who is able or willing to say. It is certain that the system has its disadvantages, for harpy talons are not as clever as the hands of Elves or Orcs. And, while the eagle on the peak may find its home precarious, the harpy near the ground has much more pressing problems with which to concern herself. And some of them know how to start fires.

This is why Skrch built her nest in a south-facing cave, high on the side of one of the bluffs that jutted here and there from the landscape of the Barrens. It was unapproachable on foot, and anyone attempting to climb the bluff would find himself the immediate target of very specific attention.

Now the sound of young voices bounced around the inside of the cave and echoed outside.

"Ooooh, look at _this _one. It's _really _pretty over here," said Knnr, the youngest of Skrch's six surviving krrrahk at four years old. The small rogue prodded a javelin into position so that the sunlight that reached into the cave glittered more prominently on its head.

"Let's line them _all _up in the back," said Trrilik, a storm hag one year older and exactly the same size. "I wish I could have seen the Orc kill them."

"It wasn't that great," Ckkk said. "We missed most of it."

"Jhha," said Vrawk. "And then it was over really fast."

The oldest fledgling, Serrw, was still picking at the back half of the kodo. She hefted a segment of leg bone in one wing talon, peering into the end.

"You already got all the marrow out," she said. "I swear, Ckkk, you eat way too much for a runty little storm hag."

"There's plenty in the front bones, and I'm _not _the runt," Ckkk said, holding out her wing-talon to admire a bangle. "Lrfk is."

"Hhek, she's not, she's – mfff – older than you," Serrw said, gnawing at a different bit of bone. "Teeth are so much better than beaks…"

"She's the smallest," Ckkk said, in a tone that indicated the argument was over.

"Mother's coming," said Lrfk.

The others fell silent as they stared toward the cave entrance. Lrfk was a very dark blue, almost black. Her eyes and her wings and her feather mane were all the same color. In daylight, she was conspicuous. At night, she was nearly invisible.

"You can't see anything," Trrilik said. "It's too scrrring bright."

"Jhha," Lrfk said. "But I can see her."

The other fledglings exchanged glances behind their smallest sister's back. No one wanted to disagree with Lrfk. She would just calmly listen, and then you would turn out to be wronger than you wanted to know. It was like that time she'd told Strrri not to touch the knife their Mother had brought home, and then Strrri had cut her own leg off and bled to death.

The others tended to listen to what Lrfk said, now. It was the only reason Serrw hadn't tipped her out of the nest already. She was small even for a storm hag at six years, perhaps three feet tall, and none of them had ever seen her do a single spell.

It was at that moment, in the awkward silence of harpies who really wanted to argue but didn't dare, that Skrch swooped in from above the cave mouth.

If they had been smarter, the others might have wondered how Lrfk could see Skrch coming from the top of the bluff. It might also have been worth inquiring why, when the blast from the queen's powerful wings drove her other children a step backward, Lrfk kept her footing at the cave entrance as if no wind had touched her.

"Oh, very pretty," Skrch said, looking at the arrangement of weapons and gold piled around the walls. She stretched her legs, scuffing her talons in the dried grass on the floor. "You've done a good job. Is everyone alive still?"

A chorus of "Jhha!" came back from various parts of the cave.

"We saved you some kodo," Serrw piped up. "Except Ckkk ate most of the marrow."

"I did not," Ckkk said.

"Don't even start," Skrch said. "Lrfk, did they let you eat anything?"

"Jhha, Mother," Lrfk said. She turned from the entrance and moved back to butt her head against her mother's wing. Skrch groomed her daughter's mane idly with a wing talon.

"Good girls," she said. "Oh, you left me some of the spine, too. Very good."

"So what about that Orc?" Knnr said. "Did he die?"

Skrch, crouched next to the rather scanty remains of the kodo, swallowed before replying. "No. She'll do fine, if she doesn't go wandering off. I'm going to take her around to some water holes tomorrow."

"Why?" Vrawk said.

Skrch surveyed the curious expressions of all her daughters with patient resignation.

"I talked to you about this," she said. "We have lots and lots of things that want to kill us. Right?"

"Right!" said numerous voices.

"So we want to change that. And how do we do it?"

"Kill them first!" said Ckkk.

"_Hhek!" _Skrch snapped. "All six of you couldn't kill everything that hates harpies, even if you worked together instead of arguing all the time. This Orc's nation is new to the Barrens. We want to make friends with them so they'll be on our side, instead of everyone else's. Understand?"

"On… Our side?" Trrilik said slowly. "Why would they do that?"

"Scrrr," Skrch muttered. Age wasn't the problem. Harpies came out of the egg walking and flying, and matured much faster than Humans or Elves. The problem was…

Skrch did not know any word for genetics. Mostly she blamed it on the curse. Harpies were harpies. The fact that Skrch herself was a little different was purely a matter of accident.

"Next time I lay an egg, I'm going to drop it three or four times," she said. "Maybe it will turn out smarter than the rest of you. Except for Lrfk. Look. Orcs don't think the same as harpies, see? At least most of them don't. That's why they tend to live in large groups. They're not trying to kill their siblings all the time."

"We don't try to kill our siblings," Ckkk pointed out.

Skrch sighed. "Not on purpose, no. You're better about that than my own sisters were, at least. But it doesn't occur to you to help each other out, either."

"Well, no," Serrw said reasonably. "Why would it?"

"So that the person you help will help _you _the next time," Skrch said.

A polite but uncomprehending silence followed.

"Never mind," Skrch said. "Maybe, one day, some of you will understand. For now, do what I tell you, and you'll almost certainly live to grow up. All right?"

"All right!" said various cheerful voices.

"Good." Skrch ate quickly. The krrrahk went back to playing with their new trinkets back in the part of the cave that was shady even at midday, piled with dry grass for bedding. Sometimes they argued, and sometimes they wandered back to pick at the kodo or sun themselves.

_Seven years, _Skrch thought. _Fourteen eggs, and six survivors. Serrr rolled her eggmate out of the nest by accident before it hatched. That scrrring warlock hit me before I laid Lrfk's egg, and her eggmate never hatched at all. _

The other six casualties…

_Three wandered too far, and died of sunstroke. A wyvern stole one. Strrri killed herself by accident, and Zch I never found after she flew off._

The problem was that harpies could fly long before they were canny enough to keep themselves alive. She'd tried putting up a net of web, to keep them in the nest while she was gone, but the wyvern had gotten through that too easily. It left them without a way to escape if something came in after them.

It was less of a problem, with six krrrahk over three years living together. And Lrfk seemed to know, somehow, when something was coming. Skrch put it down to the blast of magic that had hit her while she was gravid, when she ran into a wyvern carrying his passenger toward Crossroads.

"Listen, now," Skrch said, licking her wing talons. "Everybody eat as much as they can while I'm gone, so it doesn't go to waste. Serrw, you and Vrawk push the rest out and get some clean grass after everyone's done. I've got to go back and keep an eye on the Orc tonight, and I may be gone most of the day tomorrow. I'll be sure and bring you something, so don't try to hunt anything that doesn't fly right by the nest. Everyone understand?"

"Jhha," the krrrahk said.

"If anything bothers you, kill it. If it's a dragon, fly away and hide somewhere. I'll find you. No matter what happens, _stay together and watch out for each other. _Most things that can hurt one of you can't hurt all of you together."

"Jhha, Mother."

"Good girls. I'm very proud of you," Skrch said.

And for all that they drove her nearly insane almost every day, it was the truth.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

_To Moephius: Yes, I do know what parthenogenesis is. This is why I mentioned it in the introduction, why Skrch is a virgin but has six daughters, and why I also made mention of Daphnia longispina (a species of water flea that only reproduces sexually under certain very special conditions)._

"How much further is it?"

"Not far," Skrch called from up ahead.

Dev Blackstare rubbed her forehead. She felt stronger than yesterday, and a small breakfast had helped, but her head still hurt. The sun had risen very early, they were traveling east, and the glare contributed materially to this condition.

_I hope I'm not doing something stupid._

She was overdue in camp. Technically, she ought to report back to Kerd Bladeleaper and get her approval before agreeing to follow this harpy all over every inch of ground between here and the Tattered Banner's new village.

But the Bladeleaper was always encouraging her raiders to use their initiative. And knowing where water was could mean the difference between life and death, out here. Under the circumstances, it seemed like a good idea not to do something that might seriously offend her new acquaintance.

Especially when her sword arm still felt weak, and the harpy didn't have to come within her reach at all. She _did _remember the cyclone yesterday.

The harpy queen glided into view over a small rise in the grassy earth up ahead. Until she came close, it was easy to forget how big she was.

"Fifteen feet seems like kind of a small wingspan, for a five foot body," Dev said.

"Five and a half feet, and I have hollow bones," Skrch said, hovering in a way that should not, technically, be possible. "And before you ask, yes, I have seen inside a harpy's bones. Most harpies have, if they live to be twenty-three. I'd guess some magic is also involved, given that I've never seen a bird with wings this small compared to the rest of it." She glanced back over her shoulder. "The fountain is right over the hill, but it's better just to look from the top, if you ask me. There's a herd of thunder lizards there right now."

"Then it's probably not much good to the clan," Dev said, urging Daysleeper up toward the crown of the small hill. The wolf padded silently through the tall grass.

"Grouchy Orc," Skrch said mildly. "Still got a headache?"

"Un huh," Dev said. She paused to look down at the small oasis, grateful for the small amount of shade provided by her helmet. "I do appreciate that you're doing this, though."

Four giant reptiles, not entirely unlike kodos, lay around the pile of rocks from which the fountain ran. They were snorting and rolling in the dust, and the sound was quite audible from where Dev sat on wolfback.

"Far as I'm concerned, anybody who isn't trying to kill me is my friend," Skrch said. "That makes you and me more or less boon companions, Warrior."

Dev laughed silently. "Boon companions? Where'd you hear that one?"

Skrch turned her head, giving Dev a glimpse of features as pointed as an Elf's.

"A green Orc and a bull-man – a Tauren – from the Crossroads," Skrch said. "They were trying to climb up to my nest to get my fledglings. I knocked the Orc off, and the Tauren said he'd be back to avenge his boon companion."

"Was he?"

"Jhha, I mean, yes," Skrch said. "I was gone at the time. I'm afraid the girls had torn him into pretty small pieces by the time I came back. It's hard to hold onto a cliff and swing an axe at the same time."

"I see," Dev said. She turned Daysleeper and started to descend the hill again.

"The thunder lizards aren't here all the time," Skrch said. "Some of them come down from the bluff in the winter. They'll be gone by the time the spring rains start."

"Where's the next closest?" Dev said.

"Hmmm." Skrch circled wolf and rider, gaining altitude. The sun gleamed on her feathers, red as blood and slick as steel. "There's sort of a pool ten miles east. It's pretty deep now, but sometimes it dries up to a mud hole in full summer. It's all grass from here to there, but it's a long way to go with the sun in the sky."

Blackstare considered this. If she were to trust Skrch completely, she could simply scout the general location. This was particularly tempting in light of the fact that her headache was not going away, and going ten miles to the East would make it impossible for her to get back and report for at least another day. _With lives other than mine to consider, I'd better see the water with my own eyes before I go telling Kerd Bladeleaper that it's there_.

"I'm willing if you are," Dev said.

"This way," Skrch said, and turned to glide lazily off toward the East.

---

Considerably further East, the only Lich in the Barrens was having a slightly better day than usual.

Phage Marrowice hovered under a palm tree beside the stream, the panels of his brown kilt swaying just above the ground. A wisp spiraled around and around the tree trunk, casting an eerie glow. Phage turned his skull to and fro as he surveyed his domain.

In addition to the Temple of the Damned that had allowed him to train his newest necromancer, the settlement now boasted five Nerubian towers this side the stream instead of two. The new slaughterhouse was rather sad, its giant wheel made of palm branches due to the limited amount of summonable wood nearby, but it was functional.

Now if only the two ghouls he'd sent out came back al – well, still Undead, and brought something useful, his day would be complete.

_That's the trouble with living in the Barrens. Ner'zirhud is used to working with Human corpses, and there aren't many available, even this far North._

They'd already exhausted the contents of the burial mounds they'd been able to find, and only two of the resulting skeletons had shown the same longevity as the remarkable creature Phage generally called Gray.

And then there was…

"Lord Marrowice?" said a familiar voice. "You wished to see me?"

Phage sighed, or at least made the appropriate sound, since there are things one physically cannot do when one consists of three quarters of a skeleton.

"I wish you wouldn't call me that," he said, turning to survey the newest member of his tiny kingdom. "I suppose I could be as tyrannical as I wished, but my indomitable mandate would still only extend from that cliff face to this stream." _And since I'm currently exercising lordship over… Let's see…_

Four acolytes, seven ghouls, one banshee, two shades, two necromancers, and three abominations, now that Ner'zirhud had finally gotten the latest one finished. _And one possessed dragon. And three skeletons. _

And then there was Viri Starwater.

Undeads were not common in Kalimdor. Undead Elves were even rarer. So, when Phage turned Viri's sad corpse over to Ner'zirhud, he had not been quite sure what the necromancer would come up with.

The result would have been beyond Phage's wildest dreams, if a Lich ever dreamt. It was unfortunate that Huntress Starwater had not reacted quite the same way.

"If you say so, Lord Marrowice," Viri Starwater said coolly.

Huntress Starwater had been a Night Elf in life, tall and stately, battle-scarred but not disfigured. This was more or less still how she looked. She might be a little paler violet than usual, and her hair had gone entirely silver-gray.

There were marks, of course. That was inevitable, given that she'd met her reasonably timely demise at the hands of a flock of harpies. Most of the new scars were hidden by her leather cloak. Nothing would ever hide the diagonal line that crossed her face from forehead to chin.

_She's never going to forgive me for bringing her back, _Phage thought sadly_. It's quite possible that she can't. Sometimes it takes them that way._

"The necromancer Felwyn has expressed a desire to make a short trip out of camp, to collect a few items she feels she will need," he said. "I'd like you to go with her. She has a tendency to be absentminded, and I wish to ensure her safety."

"Yes, of course," Viri said. She turned and stalked away without another word. Phage shook his skull slightly as he watched her go.

---

Variel Slowburn stuck her head out of the gold mine as Felwyn the Necromancer slid past. Felwyn had only been a necromancer for a few weeks, and she retained the gliding gait cultivated by all acolytes.

"Where are you going, Felwyn?" Variel asked.

Felwyn stopped, turning to face her old friend. Given that their greatest career ambition generally involves a horrible death, flinching is not something acolytes do very often. Variel did not do it now, but it was difficult.

One of Felwyn's eyes was brown. The other was a pupilless and shining blue. It sat in her thin, tanned face like a drop of water on the dust.

"I need to find some things," Felwyn said.

"What's that on your staff?" Variel said.

Felwyn turned her head, eye-to-eye with the skull mounted atop the length of wood. A new crossbar was now lashed to the top above the bony emblem.

"Oh," she said. "That's not for today." And she turned and continued on her way.

Variel shrugged and went back inside the mine. Felwyn hadn't been quite the same since the incident with the dragon. If they'd been living with other Humans, this might have been a handicap.

As it was, she was probably better for it.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Late in the day, Skrch rose over the edge of her nest carrying a dead boar in each claw. She dropped them with a relieved _oof _not far inside the entrance. Her krrrrahk had helpfully cleared a space, saving themselves the trouble of clearing out bloodied grasses later.

Five of the fledglings converged on the food at once. Lrfk sat close to the cave mouth, stretching her blue-black wings. She had strange feathers, sleek and tight to her bones, unsuitable for the soaring raptor flight common to her kind.

"Aren't you hungry, Lrfk?" Skrch said.

"No, I caught a vulture earlier," Lrfk said.

"You can get sick eating those," Skrch said. "I thought I told you that."

"Yes, Mother. I washed it before I killed it."

Skrch tried without success to picture this, but Lrfk was the only one of her daughters she'd never caught telling a lie. Besides, closer examination revealed that Lrfk had somehow placed the little beaked skull in her mane, like a truly disturbing tiara. It was stark white. Lrfk was very clean.

"All… right…" Skrch said, staring at the skull. "Just don't do it any more. There ought to be plenty of other birds you could catch."

"Yes, Mother," Lrfk said.

Skrch turned to watch her daughters eat. She counted them two or three times to make sure everyone was there, then looked carefully at each one to make sure no one was sick. _Not that there's much I could do if they were. _

"I have to go back and find Dev Blackstare," she said. "She's probably at the watering hole by now. I gave her good directions. Be good girls while I'm gone, and don't kill anything that can talk unless it's trying to kill you. Jhha?"

"Jhha, Mother," everyone said.

"Mother," Lrfk said. Skrch turned to look down at her daughter's pale and serious face, startling against her dark feathers.

"Yes, Lrfk."

"I won't be here much longer," Lrfk said.

She said it quite calmly, but for some reason a chill ran up her mother's spine.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure. I'll be sure and tell you when I find out," Lrfk said.

"That's good," Skrch said, other words failing her. "Don't… Go anywhere while I'm not here, all right?"

"No, of course not," Lrfk said. "You'd better go find your Orc," she added reassuringly. It was very easy to forget she was only six, an adolescent as harpies counted it.

"Jhha," Skrch said. She swept her wing around her smallest child and embraced her carefully. Then she turned and sprang into the dying heat of the afternoon.

---

Death changes people. The death that changes you most may be your own.

Viri Starwater crept through the uneven terrain southeast of the camp, following Felwyn Smallfinger. She moved around the little necromancer, sometimes to one side or the other, and sometimes ahead or behind. She knew with an absolute certainty that she would remember every step she took, every sound she heard, everything she saw.

But all that Viri Starwater saw was not visible to the eye.

She felt the bones in the earth beneath her where a red dragon had fallen a long time ago. She felt the Orc bones inside the dragon, though they were even older. In the air she saw the shapes of flying things, evaporated by fire or by magic so that not even ashes were left. Without looking at the necromancer, she saw Felwyn's left eye as it watched sleeplessly in all directions.

By the time she was a thousand years old, Huntress Starwater could track any living thing, anywhere. Now Viri could find any dead thing in existence. If the corpse was larger than a rabbit, its dim shape showed through any amount of dirt or stone. The dead were everywhere. She could shove their lambent outlines to the periphery of her attention, but it took an effort.

The restless dead she could not ignore. They glowed with fervent unlife, an awful little galaxy of their own. Even with her back to the camp, Viri could easily sense the faint green radiance of the abominations and the ghouls. The single banshee glowed brighter, distant kinship now become closer than any Elf would wish.

And then there was the center, the cold bright star around which Viri's dark new universe revolved.

Viri Starwater had become the very thing she had spent the last years of her life fighting against. In the face of such a contradiction, some Undeads have destroyed themselves at once. Some have lost their minds. And some have yielded to the slow erosion of time as they slowly lost their ability to deny their condition.

Viri did not veer into complete insanity in her first months of unlife only because she could navigate back to that single brilliant core. To say that she loved would not be fully correct. Those who breathe do not love the air.

"We are nearing the road," Viri said now, her own voice cold and distant in her ears.

"There is a well beside the way," Felwyn said. Her brown robe swished around her small feet as she moved. She was some eight inches shorter than the Elf. "One of the shades told me."

"You carry water," Huntress Starwater said. She had not missed the skin bottle hanging from Felwyn's belt.

"Yes," said the Human. "I'm seeking something else. You'll keep watch, won't you? You'll hear anyone coming before we can see them."

"Yes," Viri said.

If she listened closely, she could hear Felwyn's heart beating, steady and even. The sound struck an odd discord with the other things that surrounded them. _Life is local. Death is everywhere._

They came to the well a few minutes later, a circle of stone rising out of the earth. Viri stood by the road and listened as Felwyn began to gather a few scant weeds from around its base. Every so often the girl reached up to adjust the deer's skull she wore over her brown hair.

Vir Starwater watched Felwyn from the corner of her eye. The skin of the necromancer's left hand was pale and ridged, scarred from a burn that should have killed her. The left side of her face was marked as well, puckered up around her new eye.

"Someone is coming," Viri said eventually. She heard wings beating in the distance.

"Who?" Felwyn said. She tucked a last strand of brownish green into a satchel and stood up.

"Something large, and winged," Viri said. She listened again. "And another with four paws, very quiet. Both alive."

"All right," Felwyn said. She moved back from the path, toward one of the two palms that shaded the well.

"That will not hide you," Viri said. She did not take her eyes from the sky. "Anything that goes on all fours in the Barrens will smell us both. My decay is arrested, but I may still be mistaken for carrion. You cannot be."

"Then we'll wait," Felwyn said. She came to stand beside Viri, closer than most Humans would care to be to an Undead. The girl hung the satchel over her shoulder, wrapped both hands around the shaft of her staff, and stood still.

It was nearly evening. Even so, it was difficult to see all the way to the eastern horizon, even for one whose eyes could not be hurt by the sun.

Viri gradually recognized the silhouette as it came toward them, pinions sweeping the dry air.

"A harpy," she said. "A very large one. Perhaps a queen."

She would once have felt suspicion, disgust, perhaps even fear (though Huntress Starwater had feared few things). She was beyond those things now. Once the worst has happened, nothing else has much effect.

"And the other one?" Felwyn said.

Viri stared, without squinting or flinching.

"An Orc on a wolf," she said.

"Chasing the harpy?" Felwyn said.

"I do not think so," Viri said.

The pair drew closer. Felwyn leaned past the Elf and looked. She squinted, but only with her right eye. Something red flashed in the blue depth of the other one.

"Then he was right," Felwyn said, as if to herself.

This remark did not seem addressed to Viri, so she did not respond. She drew a glaive instead, hiding it beneath her cloak.

"You won't need it," Felwyn said as she straightened.

Viri Starwater judged this unworthy of reply.

The wolf pulled up a few yards from them a couple of minutes later. The harpy hovered low beside the rider, the sun gleaming on her red plumage. The Orc growled something.

"She doesn't speak Common," the harpy said, in a pure high voice. "She said she'd rather not fight, and can we get a drink. I'd say yes if I were you, by the way. She's already grouchy."

"We're not looking for trouble," Felwyn said.

The harpy extended her talons and spread her tail feathers. A moment later, she stood on the ground.

"Then do you mind?" Skrch said.

Felwyn moved a polite couple of yards from the well. Viri moved with her, without turning her back to the new arrivals.

Dev Blackstare dismounted and filled a skin bottle at the well. After she filled the bottle, she drank from her cupped hand. Then she stood beside the wolf as it drank, and as Skrch stooped awkwardly over the water.

She never took her eyes from Viri Starwater, or her hand from the butt of her scimitar.

"Talons aren't as good at hands, when it comes to drinking," Skrch said, rising with water dripping down her chin. "No palm to speak of."

The Viri Starwater who had once hated the race of harpies recognized that a departure from some essential pattern was at work. The new Viri only watched, and waited to see whether the strangers would attack or not.

The Orc spoke again.

"Dev says is that a Human skull?" Skrch said, turning to look at Felwyn again.

"The one on my head is a deer," Felwyn said. "The one on the staff…"


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"She says the skull's name is Mir'noj," Skrch said. "She says he told her we were coming."

Dev Blackstare did not seem startled by this. _Wherever her clan came from, it wasn't somewhere you could take time to be surprised. She ought to fit right in here._

"Is she some kind of Human warlock?" Dev asked.

"She's a necromancer. To be honest, I'm surprised to see one out here."

"A necro – what?" Dev said.

"Someone raises the dead," Skrch said. She turned back to Felwyn Smallfinger. "Have you been a necromancer long?"

"No," Felwyn said. "Only a few months."

"She's new at it," Skrch told Dev. "She's awfully young. Probably something to do with all the burn scars, you ask me."

"And what about the Elf?" Dev Blackstare said.

"What about her?" Skrch said, glancing at Viri Starwater.

"She's dead," Dev said. It was not a question. "And this girl didn't raise her. Did she?"

"Blackstare says, did you raise your friend here?" Skrch said in Common.

The Elf stood looking from Skrch to Dev Blackstare with cloudy white eyes.

"No," Felwyn Smallfinger said. "My teacher Ner'zirhud raised the Huntress. I helped, but only with the sewing."

"She says her master did it," Skrch reported. "She helped with the sewing."

Blackstare looked closely at Huntress Starwater. "Did a good job," she said.

Skrch relayed this. The Undead raised a gray eyebrow, but said nothing. Neither the Elf nor the Orc seemed disposed to take their hands from their weapons.

"We serve as best we can," Felwyn said, as if oblivious to this.

Skrch translated quickly. Then she said, "Who do you serve?" without waiting for Blackstare to ask. She ignored the look the Orc shot her.

"We were part of the Scourge," the necromancer said. "The Lich King threw us away. We follow the Lich Phage Marrowice now."

"I think I understood most of that," Dev said in Orcish. "Except I don't know what a lich is."

"You've got me," Skrch said. She shook her mane, trying to get the hot mass of feathers off her neck. "I never saw one. You want to?"

"Have you completely lost your mind?" Dev said flatly. "You want to go wandering into a camp full of who-knows-how-many Undeads with just the _two _of us?"

"You would not be harmed," Viri Starwater said unexpectedly.

She said it in Orcish.

"Demons," Dev Blackstare said. "I _know _I'm going to regret this."

---

Phage Marrowice stood inside the gold mine, surveying the stockpile. His acolytes had managed to summon quite a number of the featureless discs of metal. The mound was as tall as Phage at his normal hover.

"Excellent work," he said. "I can't imagine what we'll do with it, but at the very least you can all go to Crossroads and get new clothes. Two at a time, that is. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves."

"No, Lord," Varen Longtoes said. The other three acolytes wore their hoods up, only their noses visible. Varen was distinguishable only by his height.

"I'll have to send one of the shades first, of course," Phage said.

"Lord Marrowice?" said a deep voice at his elbow. He did not bother to turn around. He would not be able to see anything.

"That was impressively quick," he said.

"No, Milord," the shade said. "Felwyn Smallfinger and the Huntress have returned. I thought you would wish to be informed."

"Thank you," Phage said. "Was that all?"

"They have returned with a gray Orc and a harpy," the shade amplified.

"Viri must be stronger than I thought, to have dragged them this far," Phage said, turning toward the entrance to the gold mine. "You may stop for the day, acolytes, we've more than enough gold for now."

"A _live _Orc and harpy, Lord," the shade said.

Phage halted in the crudely arched doorway.

"What?"

"See for yourself," the shade said, and there was a puff of air as it departed.

It was not actually possible to see them at first. The newcomers were surrounded by a curious crowd consisting of almost everyone in the camp. Even the dragon was present, perched on the crown of the necropolis as she surveyed them with a purple eye. The skeleton Gray sat between her folded wings, clattering his jaw.

Viri Starwater was nowhere in sight.

"And who, exactly, is patrolling the camp right now?" Phage asked.

Three abominations turned to look down at him. All three had parts of local creatures attached to them. The newest one had bits of feathers on its shoulders. They fluttered jauntily in the slight breeze.

"Ooops," one said. They turned to lumber hastily away.

Five ghouls, a banshee, and Ner'zirhud remained. At first glance, the little necromancer consisted entirely of a robe, a deer skull, and a nervously vibrating beard. The rest of him seemed to shrink together underneath.

"My apprentice brought back the herbs I needed, Milord," he said. "I expect to be able to embalm soon. Our abominations will last much longer."

"Good," Phage said. "And who is this?"

"Er…" Ner'zirhud turned to look helplessly at Felwyn. She bowed unabashedly.

"This is the warrior Dev Blackstare, of the Tattered Banner Clan," Felwyn said. "And this is Skrch."

A red-plumed harpy stood on the ground beside the wolf. The Elf-bird cocked her head as she surveyed Phage with a bright eye. Tail feathers fanned behind her.

"And you're a lich?" she said.

"I'm Phage Marrowice," Phage said. "Yes. Er. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

_Why is there a harpy inside my camp? _he wondered, surveying the lean Orc as she looked warily around her. She was indeed gray, almost the same color as the faded skeleton who sat astride the dragon.

He could not possibly be developing a headache. That would require the physical presence of a brain. Phage rubbed his temples anyway. The faint rasping was lost in the sound of the dragon exhaling behind him.

"Well, I never saw a Lich before, and the warrior owes me a favor because I showed her a _lot _of waterholes," Skrch said cheerily. "She's scouting for her clan. I think they're new to the Barrens."

"Is that so?" Phage said.

The Orc looked at the harpy. Skrch rattled off something in Orcish.

"Yes," Skrch relayed the answer. "She says their Chieftain is Veren Redmorning. Not that you'd probably know who that is, because I didn't, and I live closer to them than you do. I'm not sure why she's so edgy. I'm pretty sure she told me they've got at least one Undead living with them."

"Do they?" Phage said.

Skrch spoke to the Orc. The Orc answered, looking at Phage this time.

"Un huh," Skrch said a moment later. "One Undead Human and one living Elf. Everybody else is gray Orcs, like the warrior here."

Despite himself, Phage found his curiosity piqued. The harpies who had been attacking his camp since its founding could be described as cruel, malevolent, possibly even evil. _Chatty _was not an adjective he would have considered apropos, until now.

"Where did they come from?" he asked.

"Draenor," the harpy said, after a moment's conference. "By way of Ashenvale. That's where they got the dead man and the Elf." She was looking at one of the ghouls now. It looked back, swaying to and fro on its bent legs. "Hey, are these yours? I saw a couple of them dragging a dead centaur the other day."

"They live here, yes," Phage said. "And that would explain why it's taking the other two so long to get back."

_Draenor?_ he thought.

"Shouldn't the Orcs be red-skinned, if they just came from Outland?" he said.

"No idea," Skrch said. "I'll ask… She says they used to be," Skrch reported. "They've been here a few months and everybody's changed color. She says they're not serving the demon any more, whatever _that _means."

"I think I understand," Phage said. "They're all alone here, they have no allies, and everything they've met so far is trying to kill them. Right?"

Skrch talked to Dev Blackstare for a moment.

"Basically, yes," she said.

"Do you think their Chieftain would consider a treaty?" Phage Marrowice said.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

_A/N: I'm not exaggerating harpy wing speed, by the way. Bald eagles are known to travel up to 44 m.p.h (_not _counting dives, which are faster), and their wingspan is closer to a fledgling's (8 ft.) than to Skrch's (15 ft). Additional: someone has taken the time to note in a review that wing speed is not directly proportional with wingspan. While I did know this (hence the fact that Lrfk flies faster than Skrch), I appreciate this person's helpfulness in informing me. _

Skrch rose very early the next day. She shook herself out of her pile of grass as the first ray of sun touched the lip of the cave mouth. This required her to dislodge most of her fledglings, who had snuggled up for warmth during the night. They protested with small squawking noises.

"Hush," Skrch said. "I'll be back later. Take good care of each other while I'm gone."

She paused to turn both of her eggs, then resettled her daughters gently around them.

She'd had to speak sternly to Vrawk and Ckkk again, for all the good that did. They'd been _this _close to killing another pair of green Orcs when she'd found them last night, and it wasn't as if the Orcs had been attacking the nest; they were headed west and south, moving toward Thunder Bluff and the road into the Stonetalons.

Skrch groomed her feathers as best she could with her talons. She was dislodging a stubborn straw from her tail feathers when she saw Lrfk sitting at the cave mouth. In the dawn light, the smallest krrrahk was barely visible.

"Did you have a bad dream, Littlest?" she asked.

"Hhek, mother," Lrfk said. "I need to come with you today."

"I'll be in the air a lot today," Skrch said, as she came toward the cave mouth. "Back and forth. Can you keep up?"

"I'm sure I will," Lrfk said.

"All right," Skrch said. "Then follow me. Stick close. You never know what we'll run into."

"Yes, I do," Lrfk said cheerfully.

Skrch laughed, and launched herself into the air. Lrfk unfolded her sleek wings and leapt.

Lrfk had spent most of her time in the nest. Very seldom had Skrch ever seen her fly. The harpy queen was a little surprised at the pace of their progress. Lrfk kept up with her mother easily, though she never seemed to fly in a straight line. Her pointed wings cut the air like a knife through water, and she darted this way and that as she turned the forked tail that had once made her mother despair of her ever learning to fly. Skrch's powerful wingbeats carried her along quickly. Lrfk in flight could hardly be caught by the eye.

Fifteen miles is a long day's travel in the Barrens on foot. It is a matter of minutes as the harpy flies. Skrch cut a straight line across the route she had led Dev Blackstare the day before, speeding over high ground and low.

"We're going to run into a wyvern," Lrfk called, raising her voice to be heard over the wind streaming past them.

Skrch squinted, scanning the blinding East. "Where?"

"He's coming out of the sun," Lrfk said. "There's a Troll riding him."

_Scrrr, _Skrch thought. _ I've never met a Troll who didn't throw things. _She tilted her wings, letting the wind run under them and lift her. _You don't want to be on the low side of this one._ At the same time, she began to lower the left side of her tail, moving her in that direction as the air drove against the suddenly presented surface.

There was always the possibility they wouldn't be attacked. She might be able to go around.

_Unlike the last four times, _Skrch thought. _Maybe _I've _never stolen a little wyvern, but they never stop and _ask, _now do they?_

"Stay close!" she shrieked, and began winding up her mana. She could see a shape off to the southeast now, the barest trace of beating wings. From the corner of her eye she saw Lrfk surrounded by a corona of blue light, tendrils of magic trailing behind her as she drew on the power of wind and storm.

It seemed like a _big _corona, but she had no time to think about it.

The wyvern or his rider had seen them, because Skrch was beating northwest and the creature was still getting closer. She could make out the troll now, a sleek blue shape lying low against the wyvern's neck. Its white hair blew out behind it. It was quite clearly holding an axe.

"Go away!" she shrilled in Orcish. "We're not looking for a fight!"

She could not hear the answer. The Troll's voice was too deep to carry. But the wyvern did not turn aside. As it approached, beating its bat wings hard against the wind, she saw the snarl on its lion jaws. It would not spare her fledgling. Too many wyvern fledglings had been taken by those who looked just like her.

"Scrrr," Skrch said.

Maybe some things were inevitable.

Then a massive ball of blue light shot past her. The wyvern tried to spin aside, but the magic followed it. Blinding radiance engulfed beast and rider for an instant. Skrch closed her eyes involuntarily.

When she opened them, the wyvern was dropping away below them. It glided erratically, showing no interest in its direction. The Troll must have been strapped on, because it hung sideways from the creature's back, but did not fall off.

Skrch did not wait to see if they were going to recover.

"Lrfk?" she said, pausing in the air.

"Here, Mother!" The little harpy darted up beside her, the aureole of magic already fading.

"Are you all right?"

"Jhha!"

Skrch looked at her anxiously, but the little vulture skull was not even dislodged from Lrfk's feather mane.

"Then East," Skrch said. "We're still a long way out!"

Mother and daughter beat their wings into the rising sun.

---

Viri Starwater spent the night pacing around the edges of the Undead settlement. Every so often, she went to check on Dev Blackstare. The slender Orc lay in a hollow perhaps a quarter mile from the camp, her head pillowed on her wolf. She slept with her scimitar close to her hand, and she did not toss nor turn in her sleep.

_She has slept thus often, and is accustomed to it._

Dev Blackstare did not look like any Orc woman Viri had ever seen. The living Viri might have wondered why. Viri the Undead just watched, in case Blackstare might try to sneak into the camp during the night. The Huntress would not allow anyone or anything to disturb the bright axis of her world while he was thinking. He seemed unhappy with her, and the cold logic of her newly Undead mind could not piece out the reason. The very old Elf who had taken pity on Felwyn's burns had suggestions to make, but the very young Undead Huntress was not listening just yet.

She went to make her report as the sun rose. Viri faded out of the shadow of the black ziggurat that made up the necropolis. Her lord and master hovered in place a yard from the entrance.

"Ah," Phage Marrowice said. He pivoted in the air to face her. "Good morning, Huntress. A quiet night? I didn't hear any screams."

"Yes, Lord Marrowice," Viri said. "Very quiet. The Orc is waking now. I think she will be here in a few minutes."

"Any sign of the harpy?"

"Not yet, Milord," Viri said. "But if you require translation, I can speak some Orcish."

"I appreciate that, Huntress." He turned to survey the Eastern horizon again. "But I had rather hoped she might prove a useful emissary between us and these gray Orcs. A winged creature can travel fastest here, and frankly I don't relish the thought of sending Gray and the dragon."

This did not seem to require any answer that Viri could give, so she kept silent.

"Huntress," Lord Marrowice said eventually.

"Yes, Lord."

"Is something wrong?"

"No, Lord," Viri said.

"You are not, for example, angry?"

Viri Starwater stared at him. "Of course not," she said.

"Then why - "

"Good morning!"

Viri turned her attention upwards and Eastwards. Two harpies bobbed in the air just out of range of the Nerubian towers at the perimeter of the settlement.

"Mind if we come in?" Skrch said.

"Be my guest," Phage Marrowice said.

The sound of voices produced a small crowd of ghouls, now back up to seven with the return of the foragers. They formed a rough circle around the harpies as they landed.

"Gnaargh?" one said.

"Oh, hello," Skrch said as she settled in for a landing. "Seen you before, haven't I? You're missing that one tooth."

"Aaargh," the ghoul said. The much smaller harpy hovered beside them in the air, blue-black wings barely moving. Viri Starwater watched them in silence, hand on her glaive.

"Did you get your centaur back here, then?" Skrch asked, shifting from foot to foot.

"Aaargh."

"Good for you." She turned back to the others. "Sorry, this is my daughter, Lrfk. She wanted to come with me today. I hope that's all right."

"Oh, certainly." Lord Marrowice sounded faintly amused. "If she's not frightened."

Viri looked at the small harpy. She stared around the camp with wide and avid eyes. They were blue.

"Not much scares a krrrahk, that is, a fledgling," Skrch said. "It's part of the reason it's so hard to keep them alive long enough to grow up. They don't know any better. Is Blackstare here yet?"

"Yes," Viri said.

Phage and Skrch turned to see the Orc ride up within polite distance of the Nerubian towers.

"Hello the camp," the Orc said, in her own language.

"Tell her to come in," said Phage Marrowice. "We have arrangements to make."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Skrch was very busy for the next few minutes, trying to translate between the Lich and the Orc and keep track of Lrfk at the same time. The krrrahk seemed uncharacteristically excited, which worried Skrch, and also seemed to be looking for something, which worried her even more.

Phage Marrowice seemed to hesitate over whom he would send.

"Of course you can't come yourself, Milord," Dev Blackstare said firmly, after the Lich's tentative suggestion met with a very sharp look from Viri Starwater. "We'd never want _our _Chieftain running off to a strange camp by himself. And your settlement looks to be a lot smaller than ours."

Skrch explained this as best she could. "I'd send the Huntress with whoever it is, if I were you," she added. "I know _I'd _feel pretty bloody secure with her around."

She was particularly proud of the word _bloody, _which she had only just learned from Dev that morning.

"What do you say to that, Huntress?" Phage said.

"I will not fail to obey. Send me if you will," Viri said. She was still keeping a cold eye on Dev Blackstare.

"Then I will send Felwyn Smallfinger as my emissary," Phage Marrowice said. "Huntress, you'll go with her."

Skrch thought this over as she translated it. _It's a good idea for lots of reasons. The older necromancer is way too nervous to be sending into a camp full of Orcs, from what I saw, and _he _can always train another one if something goes wrong._

_And if the Orcs are smart, they'll like that he sent someone smart, and if they're not, they'll respect that he sent a warrior also._

"Blackstare says that's fine," she reported a moment later.

"Shade," Phage Marrowice said.

"Yes, Lord," said a voice from the air next to the lich's arm. Skrch saw nothing there. She tried not to dwell on the fact that Lrfk, now standing on the ground, obviously did see something.

"Go and find Felwyn Smallfinger, will you? She is likely inside the Temple of the Damned."

"Yes, Lord," said the invisible creature.

A silence stretched out for a couple of minutes.

"She might need to collect a few things," Phage Marrowice said. "It is easy for me to forget that the living have needs which I do not."

Skrch rendered this for Dev. "Or she's still asleep," Skrch added.

Dev glanced at the temple, with its giant horns curling up into the sky around the entrance. "I doubt it," the Orc said.

A moment later, the girl ducked out of the low entrance. She had her satchel on her arm and her staff in hand. It still had the odd crossbar over the skull.

"I'm ready," Felwyn Smallfinger said. She glided forward to stand beside Viri Starwater.

Then her eyes fell on Lrfk. The little harpy lifted from the ground instantly, blue-black wings slicing the air.

"Oh," Felwyn said calmly. "_There _you are."

Lrfk shot forward, made a sharp turn, and landed neatly atop the staff. One claw grasped each side of the crossbar. She looked down at the necromancer from beneath the skull of a vulture. The necromancer looked up from beneath the skull of a deer.

For an instant, mana flared around them, smoky black and actinic blue.

Death and the Storm spun around each other, reaching.

Then the light and the dark fused, with a hiss like hot iron in water. The result was a dark aureole with unmistakable blue radiance at its edges. The brightness gradually died down. The Human and the harpy looked at each other. Lrfk slowly folded her wings.

"I wondered when you'd be here, Darker," Felwyn said.

"I wasn't sure where I would find you 'til now," Lrfk said.

"How'd you know…" Skrch started to say. _Lrfk means darker. But I've never told her Lrfk's name. _

Phage Marrowice and Dev Blackstare looked at them without apparent understanding. Admittedly, it was hard to tell with the lich, since a horned skull is not an excellent venue for facial expression.

Viri Starwater quietly hung the glaive back on her belt. Skrch took note of this without saying anything. She was still dumbfounded.

"I'm afraid I can't come back to the nest, Mother," Lrfk said in Saark. "Felwyn is a Littlest too, you see."

"You've met?" Phage Marrowice said to the necromancer.

"Oh, no," Felwyn said. "Well. Not in person."

"If it's what you want, Littlest," Skrch said in Saark. "These seem like pretty nice… People. Or whatever. Just don't run off with any harpies, all right?"

"Mother, I love you," Lrfk said. "But I don't like other harpies very much."

"Your instincts are sound there, at least," Skrch said.

"Can you walk with her there?" Phage asked, observing the three-foot harpy crouching on the staff.

"Yes, Lord," Felwyn said. "She's very light. Besides, I think she'll be flying most of the time."

"Very well, then. Skrch, if I might have a word before you go?"

"Sure," Skrch said, feeling a little dazed. She followed the Lich as he glided a few yards away, out of earshot.

Well, not out of the Huntress's earshot, probably. _It's the thought that counts, _Skrch thought.

"Will you allow this?" Phage Marrowice said. "She seems very young."

"Harpies grow fast," Skrch said. "She's not really that much younger, if you count it as we do. And I'd rather see her here than trying to gouge out a territory, small as she is. So if you don't object…"

"We are the dead," Phage Marrowice said. "We turn no one away, Madam. She is welcome for the rest of her life, and whatever follows." He bobbed in the air, seemingly hesitating. "Er. Felwyn no longer sees as much of the other acolytes as she did when she lived with them in the mine, and between the two of us, Ner'zirhud is no company for her. I would be pleased for her not to be alone."

"Good. Was that all?"

"No."

Skrch watched as the lich rubbed the tips of his finger bones together. He made a sound like a person clearing his throat, though since Skrch could clearly see his vertebrae it was probably not actually happening.

"Huntress Starwater," he said. "She has not been Undead for long now. Her thinking is still very literal. I'm not sure whether she will change or not. I did. But I was resurrected by the Lich King. I'm afraid we don't have access to that kind of power here."

"Mm hmm," Skrch said. Not all of it made complete sense, but she listened very carefully anyway, in case it might later.

"My experience is that she will respond to any physical threat with, hm, startling alacrity," Lord Marrowice said. "And when I give the order, she will protect everyone in your party until her body is in shreds. But if she seems cold, it is not her fault, and it should not be taken for rudeness. She is simply not able. Do you understand?"

"Manners aren't something harpies worry about," Skrch said. "Mostly there's people we fight and people we don't. And believe me, the last one is a _really _short list," she said bitterly. "Gods know I've tried. If I can get through this day's work and end up with two sets of living things in the Barrens who don't want me dead, no offense meant-"

"None taken."

" – then I'll call it a _very _good day."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"And then there is the manner of her death," Phage Marrowice said.

"What was that?" Skrch said.

"She has been reticent on the subject, as with many others." Skrch noticed that the Lich sounded pained, as if this was a source of personal discomfort. "But from what we were able to determine, she was killed by harpies. The marks on her body seemed to have been made by talons, and parts of her innards were gone."

Skrch frowned. _That doesn't make sense. _"Why didn't they take her eyes? She's still got them." Skrch was unlikely to forget the milky stare. She could feel it now, without even looking.

"What?" the Lich said.

"Eyes and brains are the best parts," Skrch pointed out. "Haven't you watched those snarly things eating?"

"The ghouls. Entirely too often, yes," Phage Marrowice said, in a tone of dawning realization.

"Oh, _scrrr_," Skrch said. "She's an Elf._ We _used to be Elves. See my ears? Not that anybody's alive who remembers. You'll never find out if you're immortal if you get shot down when you're thirty."

"I'm sorry?"

Skrch, a lifetime resident of the Barrens, was entirely deaf to the peculiarity of speaking to an apologetic lich.

"It's an insult," Skrch said. "The worst, for one of us. When I fought my mother, I took her heart out after, even though I couldn't eat it. The ones who killed the Huntress left her eyes and heart and brain because they weren't worth taking. One single talon cut across the face doesn't happen by accident. There should've been a handful."

"You mean that she was tortured to death," Phage Marrowice said. "That seems very unlikely. I did not know her alive for long, but I know she was a veteran of centuries of battles."

"But if there were many, and one was a queen, it could happen," Skrch said. "Sure, you can fight them off here easy enough. You've got towers, and a dragon, and you're a pretty powerful mage yourself, right? Those blade things the Huntress carries wouldn't get through a lightning shield. And there are older queens who can cast that. Mother could."

"And Viri was alone," Phage Marrowice said very quietly. "Well, she is not alone now. Bear that in mind as you take my people with you."

"Don't worry_," _Skrch said. "I'll watch them like they were my fledglings."

If the Lich understood the full connotations of this, he did not let on.

---

The Human, the Orc, and the Elf set out from the Undead camp. Dev Blackstare took note of the sharp marker between the bare earth and the brushy land on the other side of the stream as she cruised over their heads.

"Those ghoul things spend a lot of time weeding?" Skrch called down from overhead.

"It's blight," Felwyn said. "It spreads from the buildings."

"If you could bottle it, you could sell it for plenty in Crossroads," Skrch said.

"Undead things can't be sold," Felwyn said. "They can only be given. Nobody wants what we have to give."

"Fair enough," Dev Blackstare said. "But you're not dead. Are you?"

"Not yet," Felwyn said. Dev caught a glimpse of her face as she turned to smile up at the Orc. Behind the scars, she seemed frighteningly young. "Mir'noj always says most things are, sooner or later."

"That's so," Dev said. "Mostly sooner, in Outland. We hoped things would be different here."

"I'm going up for a look around," Skrch said, and began to climb in a widening spiral. Lrfk leapt from the staff and began circling the group as they moved up the road, darting here and there as she flirted her forked tail.

Viri Starwater seemed to ignore her. _Seems like she's ignoring me, too, but I'm not buying it._

It was strange. She'd been less bothered by a floating skeleton than she was by just a dead Elf.

_But Marrowice isn't too different from our Chieftain, for all he's Undead. The Huntress isn't like anyone. Or anything, _Dev thought.

"The Barrens aren't a bad place," Felwyn said. "If you know how to live with them. It's not really a hostile land. It's just there."

A piercing scream of rage split the sky above their heads. Dev drew her sword with no thought at all. Her ears rang with the sound, one notch below physical pain. Skrch winged her way off toward the south, red wings beating.

"Huntress, what do you see?" Felwyn asked. The girl turned to follow the harpy, and Dev perforce followed.

Viri Starwater raised her head. "Four Orcs. Two cages, moving without being pulled. Magic."

"What's in the cages?" Dev asked. They were moving faster now, and she could only just make out the outline. _They're a good half mile away._

"Five harpies in one," Viri said. "One raven in the other."

"Huntress," Felwyn said.

"Yes, Necromancer."

"Run."

Dev urged Daysleeper forward, but Viri Starwater was already gone.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"Mother's going to be _sooo _mad when she finds out," Serrw said. Knnr huddled close to her oldest sister with her wings covering her head.

"This is all your fault, Vrawk," Knnr said. Her voice was slightly muffled.

"It was Ckkk's idea," Vrawk said sullenly. She stared out through the cage bars at the four Orcs who surrounded them. Three wore full armor despite the day's uncomfortable warmth. This was the only reason one of them was not missing his kidneys.

"No, _my _idea was that we roll a big rock on them and _then _get the meat out of the cage," Ckkk said. "_You _were the one who said no. And _Trillik _was the one who said we should all go at once."

"Mother doesn't like us dropping rocks on things," Trrilik said. "Besides, _you _were the one who got batted out of the air trying to fly _out _of the cage ahead of everybody else."

"I'm not likely to forget it, thank you so much. My scrrringbum hurts like you wouldn't believe," Ckkk said.

"Hey, look!" Serrw said.

Five little harpies fell silent as they craned their necks toward the sky. The Orcs did not understand Saark, but they understood sudden silences. They stopped, glaring around warily. Mana began to rise invisibly around the shortest Orc, stirring the hem of his gray robe. Sweat beaded on their green skin in the morning sun.

---

Skrch swept down out of the sun, stifling another scream of rage. Mana crackled down the tips of her wings and arced back to her body. She felt the storm in every nerve, the urge to rend and destroy.

_That's _harpy _thinking, _said the part of Skrch that was still Skrch. _Be who you are. Don't be the curse._

She pulled up, staring down at the cages. They were off the path, traveling in a straight line through an expanse of tall grass. _Headed for Crossroads. _The Orcs could not see her. They had made a mistake in traveling due East, into the still-rising sun. Skrch's vision was as acute as any raptor, even many yards above her quarry. _I've seen two of those Orcs before. I chased the krrrahk off them last night, when I went home. _

Skrch hissed. Then she dove, talons outstretched…

…And scooped the nets off the top of one of the cages. A meaty hand swiped across the bars, gauntlet scraping the iron, but the Orc was too late. Skrch whirled in the air and flung the nets behind her.

The Orc in the robe and one warrior got out of the way. The other two went down, tangled in the strands of rope. Skrch landed atop the cage. Tiny sparks flew from her claws as she clutched at the iron, mana showering down on the fledglings beneath. The two storm hags opened their wings, crying out piercingly as they soaked up the power.

"You must have waited all night, right?" she said in Orcish. The Orcs froze for a second, startled. A ball of flame hovered above the warlock's hand, but he did not throw it. "I bloody saved your lives and you waited _all night long _for me to leave so you could _steal _my _children?_"

The warrior glared at the warlock. "You said they were animals," he said.

"They are animals," the other Orc said. "Kill her, and let's get on with our business."

Viri Starwater rose out of the tall grass like a striking snake. The armored Orc never saw the glaive that cut his head off. The warlock turned and threw the fireball, shouting something Skrch did not understand.

The Huntress should have been able to dodge. She did not. She stood quite still as the blazing missile struck the center of her unarmored chest. The impact drove her a step back, but her face did not change.

The flames evaporated. No scorch mark was left behind. Skrch had time to wonder about this while the warlock was busy trying to brain Viri with a staff. Even the smallest Orc was much larger than the Elf. It made no difference. Viri spun gracefully to the left, ducked under a wild swing, and threw the glaive underarm. Blood spurted from the Orc's throat. He made a truly horrible sound as he fell.

The Huntress retrieved her weapons, wiped them on the dead warlock's cloak, and turned to look at the two Orcs in the nets. They still struggled to get free, but without any sign of success.

"You used enchanted nets, too," Skrch said. "I should have known. _He _wasn't leaving anything to chance, right?" She jerked her head at the dead warlock.

"What's going on?" said a familiar voice from behind her.

Skrch glanced back. Dev Blackstare sat on her wolf in the flattened grass the cages had left. The animal panted. _That's doing pretty good. She circled it all the way around _at a run _without making any noise._

"Huntress, you'd better go keep an eye on the necromancer," Skrch said. Viri Starwater ducked down and faded out of view. "They tried to steal my daughters, Warrior."

"Can we kill them?" Ckkk piped up from the cage. Skrch swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat.

"No, you may _not _kill them. Is everyone all right?"

"We're fine," Vrawk said. "Except maybe they hurt Ckkk's pride a little."

"Shut up," Ckkk said.

"You know what I'd like to know?" Skrch said. She coasted down from the cage and landed next to the two Orcs. "Stop struggling. If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead. I want to know what you were going to do with my children when you got them back to Crossroads."

The entangled Orcs looked at each other.

"I don't know," one said. The other one looked away. Skrch hopped delicately onto the second one's chest.

"That's not a good idea," Dev Blackstare said from behind her, suddenly quite close. Skrch glanced back to see the gray Orc dismounted, scimitar at the ready. The wolf growled.

"This is not a day to be talking about bad ideas, Warrior," Skrch said. "You look at me _right now, _Mister Green Orc, or you are going to be without your eyeballs in about ten more seconds. I'm trying _really hard _not to be a harpy right now, you understand?"

The Orc snorted. "The warriors of the Horde do not fear threats, storm witch."

"Why do they always say the same thing? No, lie still." The Orc was trying to sit up, even with Skrch's hundred pound weight on his chest. She dug her right talons in between the strands of rope, finding the seam at the side of his breastplate. "Come on. I want to know."

"Speak up," Dev Blackstare said. A belt knife darted in from the edge of Skrch's vision. A second later the green Orc's breastplate was flapping loose, its leather straps cut. Skrch shoved it aside under the net and stood directly on the Orc's bare chest.

"Ick," Skrch said, momentarily distracted. "Now my toes will be sweaty."

"Did you want me to put it back?" Dev inquired acidly.

"Who are you?" the warrior said, twisting his neck at an awkward angle to look at the gray Orc.

"Dev Blackstare. You?"

"Does it matter?" the Orc said, looking back at Skrch.

"Maybe," Skrch said. "Though I notice you didn't try to find out what my daughters' names were. You tell me what you wanted with them, and maybe I won't open the cage 'til after you're out of sight."

A chorus of protest came from behind the bars. Some of the krrrahk understood a little Orcish.

"Desh'nar said he wanted to study storm magic in its raw form," the Orc said. "He said it'd be easier with small ones. That's all he told me."

Skrch watched the Orc closely. She wasn't the best at reading Orcish facial expression.

"What do you think, Dev?"

"I don't think he's lying," Blackstare said.

"Where you from?" the Orc in the net asked. "That's the weirdest accent I've ever heard."

"Yeah, you too," Blackstare said. "Skrch?"

"Turn them loose," Skrch said. "Start walking, Orcs. It's a long way to Crossroads."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"Here come Lrfk and the necromancer," Dev reported, shading her eyes as she squinted eastward. "Smallfinger's not making much headway through the grass. I don't see the Elf."

"No, I don't think you would," Skrch said. "She's probably keeping an eye on the green Orcs."

"Can we come out now?" Vrawk said hopefully.

"No. I said not 'til they're out of sight, and I can still see them," Skrch said firmly. The Orcs were moving fairly quickly, considering the amount of armor they wore, but they were still quite visible to the Southeast. "How come you don't have any armor, Warrior?"

"Too heavy," Blackstare said. "Daysleeper moves pretty quick carrying just me. Me plus a hundred pounds of steel would be a different story. We've seen the Horde's wolf riders at a distance, and even they only wear shoulder armor. _And _those dumb-looking broadswords, and believe me, I'm still trying to figure out how they ever use them without falling out of the saddle."

"And they've got bigger wolves," Skrch said.

"And that," Dev said. Her wolf snorted. She thumped the animal's shoulder with a scarred knuckle. "Not to worry, Daysleeper. You're faster than they are, hm?"

Skrch wandered over to the second cage. The raven huddled in the center of the enclosure, its head hunched down against its shoulders. Its head was smaller than Skrch's, but there was no way it could spread its black wings inside the cage.

"This is easily the biggest raven I've ever seen," she said. "Where do you think it came from?"

"Ashenvale, and in point of fact, I'm a crow," said the raven in a weary tenor.

"Hey, it talks," said Serrw. The krrrahk crowded against the wall of their cage, peering. "It didn't talk _before._"

"I did not want the Orcs to know."

"You look like a raven to _me_," Skrch said.

"I assure you. Ravens have a beard of feathers along their throats. See?" The black bird stretched out his head, revealing the sleek feathers on his neck. "Ahem. If you don't mind, I'm finding it rather cramped in here."

"Sure," Skrch said.

"It doesn't bother you at all that he's talking?" Dev Blackstare said from behind her. Skrch popped the cage's lock with a talon.

"Why should it? He's not really a bird."

"How do you figure that?"

"He _is_ talking. He is talking _Orcish_. And he is talking Orcish with a _Night Elf _accent," Skrch said. "We don't get many of them out here, but you see one or two."

_Mostly traitors and outcasts, _Skrch added silently_. The ones the rest of the Elves don't want anything to do with._

By the look on Dev's face, she'd already guessed part of this.

Skrch hopped backwards, giving the crow room to step out of the cage. He stretched his wings. His full wingspan was nearly ten feet.

"Very perceptive," the crow said. And changed. His wings swept forward over his head, and the feathers shrank away to leave behind brown leather. His legs lengthened and thickened, and suddenly Skrch stood face-to-face with a lavender-skinned Elf. He had been smaller than Skrch as a crow. He was nearly six feet tall now, though there was still something indefinably birdlike in his sharp face. _Funny. Still no beard._

"Neat trick," Skrch said. "Where'd the kilt and boots come from?"

"What?" the Elf said, blinking.

"I can sort of see the wings turning into a cape. But it's not like you were carrying the rest of it. And they're not part of your body. Where do they go when you're a bird? And how do they come back? Do you get to pick the color?"

"Those, I'm afraid, are among the secrets of my order," the Elf said. "And while I am unlikely ever to be accepted into their ranks again..."

"Meaning you don't know how it works?" Dev Blackstare said.

The Elf raised an eyebrow at her. The Orc stared back.

"My name is Eyrilus," the druid said at last.

"Dev Blackstare," said the Orc.

"I'm Skrch," Skrch said. "And that's Vrawk, and Ckkk, and Serrw, and Trrilik and Knnr. And it looks like the Orcs are out of sight, finally." She went to open the other cage and was momentarily engulfed in a cloud of enthusiastic little harpies. "There, there," she said, sweeping them up with her wings and nuzzling each feather mane. "We're all right, and nobody – well, almost nobody got killed."

She turned to survey the two dead Orcs, who were putting forth a definite odor in the hot sun. Behind them, struggling through the tall grass with staff in hand, came Felwyn Smallfinger. It was the first time Skrch had seen her walk normally instead of gliding. Lrfk darted around her, trailing blue-black sparks in the air.

"And here's the necromancer," Skrch said, to take her mind off brains and eyeballs. "So we can get back on our way. I'm sorry for the delay," she said to Felwyn. "Lrfk, did you _know _this was going to happen?"

The darker harpy paused in midair, fluttering her pointed wings.

"No, Mother," she said. "I knew someone was going to smash the eggs, but I didn't know who."

Skrch stiffened. "They - ?"

"Yes," Serrw said. "We're sorry, Mother. He did it after we were inside the cage."

"Which one was it?" Skrch said.

"Oh, the one in the robe," Vrawk said. None of the krrrahk looked very sorry. Ckkk was poking at the dead warrior's armor where it shone in the sun.

"Ooh. Shiny."

_It's not their fault, _Skrch told herself, bundling her grief away. _They can't help being what they are._

"Bloody Twisting Nether," Dev Blackstare said. "I'm sorry, Skrch."

"Odds are one of them wouldn't have hatched, anyway," Skrch said quietly. "I've laid sixteen eggs in my life, you know that? Two a year, since I was sixteen. At least I still have my daughters." She shook herself faintly, trying to make her head feathers lie flat again. "We should move on. The sun's getting higher all the time. Where's the Huntress?"

"Scouting ahead," Felwyn Smallfinger said. "She'll report as we go. Oh, and you've met someone. What's your name, please? Mir'noj doesn't know you."

"Just as well, given that I do not remember meeting Mir'noj," Eyrilus said politely. He introduced himself again. "Skrch has just freed me from the cage."

"What were you doing there?" Lrfk said curiously.

"You seem smarter than a rock, so I'm guessing you weren't caught the same way as the fledglings," Skrch said.

"As it happens, no," Eyrilus said. "I flew for… For a very long time. I nearly died of thirst before I found a spring. I'm afraid the Orcs saw me before I saw them there." He touched the back of his head gingerly. His hair was black.

"Oh," Felwyn said. "That's all right, then. I'm sure you'll want to meet Chief Redmorning."

"He will?" Dev said.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

The day grew hotter. Dev slouched along beside Daysleeper, swatting at the occasional biting fly. She could go no faster than Felwyn in any case, and it seemed wrong for an Orc to ride while the little Human walked. The harpy Lrfk perched on the wolf's back, and Dev was a little surprised to see how well Daysleeper tolerated her presence. _After all, she must weigh almost nothing._

"Lrfk," Dev said. She swatted another insect. Another hyena must be pretty close, because she heard rustling off to the left. It stopped after a second. They generally slunk off once they caught scent of the wolf.

"Yes, Warrior," the harpy said in Orcish.

"Ask the necromancer if magic can hurt Undeads."

Dev listened as the harpy spoke in Common. She caught one or two words – "magic" was one – but it would be a long time before she could speak for herself in that language. Felwyn replied in the absent tone Blackstare was already beginning to associate with her.

"As far as we know," Lrfk said, reaching forward to scratch behind Daysleeper's ears with a taloned foot. "Pretty wolf." Dev raised her eyebrows. _He doesn't even let _me _do that. _

"Mir'noj says he doesn't know of any Undeads who are immune to magic," Lrfk said after a second. "There are some Humans who can cast a shield that makes them invulnerable, but that's to everything."

"So an Undead doesn't normally take a fireball to the chest and just walk off?"

"A really big one might," Lrfk said. "Maybe an abomination or a frost wyrm, although I don't know what that last one is. But they'd be marked."

"Un huh," Blackstare said.

_Viri Starwater doesn't have any scorch marks, _Dev thought. _And with a fireball that size she ought to be down to her bare ribs._

That was the trouble with talking to Felwyn and Lrfk. Dev had soaked up the idea that Phage Marrowice was probably not able to lie. If he tried it would bother him, and he would be very bad at it. With someone as strange as the necromancer, it was impossible to tell.

_I'll be keeping an eye on her._

The trouble was that Dev had no doubt whatsoever that Viri was keeping an eye on _her._ And when she thought about the Huntress' eyes, this was not at all a comforting thought.

---

High above the Orc's head, out of hearing and almost out of sight, Skrch sang softly as she flew.

Even the Barrens has birds that can sing beautifully. Raptors are not among them, and certainly not harpies. Grief is little known among a race so cursed as theirs, and when a sister falls, it is most often cause for harsh rejoicing and a prompt division of her nest pretties. Humans might say "Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead," but the closest equivalent in Saark is "Your sister can't steal your shinies with her guts around her ankles."

But the queens have two songs. One is magic laden, very powerful in its effect, and it is the reason why so many races who hate harpies have contributed to the harpy gene pool. The other is for queens only, because only queens lay eggs – and only queens lose fledglings. The song is not taught, and it has no words and little melody, but every queen knows it. Even Skrch's own dam, ferocious animal that she was, had crooned this same song as her eggs fell out of the nest.

She had pushed them, of course. But the song was still there. It was one of the first sounds Skrch had ever heard. She sang it now, for her broken eggs and her lost children. The krrrahk gave her some distance in the air, even their wild ears recognizing it for what it was, and the storm crow flew beside her in silence.

Skrch never stopped watching the ground and the air while she sang. She might be grieving, but she wasn't _stupid_. This is how she saw the Orc before any of the others.

It was more than a mile ahead, riding a wolf on the bare rock that rimmed the grassy plain, but Skrch could make it out very clearly. The skin on its bare chest was ash gray, and it wore no armor. The way it slouched comfortably in the saddle twanged something very old in the back of Skrch's head.

That _is a really dangerous Orc._

"I'm going down for a look," Skrch called, raising her voice to be heard over her own wing draft. "Eyrilus, it might be better if you stay here. Krrrahk, you keep an eye on Dev and Felwyn. Jhha?"

"Jhha, Mother," Serrw called.

"If you wish it, I will stay," the crow said.

"Good." Skrch wheeled and beat for the West.

The Orc saw her while she was still a long way off. She saw the thin face tilt upward, then down again. The wolf turned for the nearest outcrop of rock, though Skrch saw no signal from its rider. _That's how I found Dev fighting the centaurs – back to the wall. That's not how green Orcs think. They'll get out in the middle of a big open space and start swinging at everything in reach. _

Skrch came in slowly and low, so that she would not be over the Orc's head. She reached for the ground a few yards off, flirted her tail for balance, and hopped to a rapid halt.

"Hallo, Orc," she said. "Are you one of Chief Redmorning's people?"

"Yeah," The Orc said in a coarse, worn alto. "You looking for one?"

Up close, Skrch realized she was probably a woman. She was skinny and tall, and her face was very narrow. The lines at the corners of her eyes and the worn ends of her underteeth suggested she was probably older than Dev.

She had not drawn a weapon, and the wolf stood with its hackles down. A few scars crisscrossed the Orc's shoulders, but her belly was unmarked.

_I've seen green Orcs attack me on sight. She's not even worried. _

"I'm Skrch," Skrch said. "I'm traveling with Dev Blackstare. You know Dev?"

"Un huh," the Orc said. "She was supposed to report back yesterday afternoon. Came looking for her when she didn't."

"That's kind of my fault, actually," Skrch said. "But I'll let her explain that. Wait here, okay?"

"Okay," the Orc said good-humoredly, and Skrch turned and flapped off again.

A couple of minutes later, she was circling Blackstare and Felwyn. The krrrahk came down to see what was happening. Eyrilus stayed up high, sweeping in graceful spirals.

"Hey, Warrior," Skrch said. "You know an older wolf-rider, bad posture, voice sounds like she drinks gravel for breakfast?"

"Bloody Hellfire," Dev said.

"So that's a yes?" Skrch said.

"Are we gonna kill her?" said Ckkk, speaking Saark.

"No, we are not," Skrch said. "We are not going to kill _any _gray Orcs, understand?"

"I am in _so _much trouble," Blackstare muttered. "Where'd you see her?"

"About three quarters of a mile ahead on the right. She said she'll wait for us there."

"Is there a problem?" Felwyn said in the Common tongue.

Dev shook her head before Skrch could translate.

"Tell her it's okay, it's not her problem. I mean, I knew I was gonna be really late. It's just I didn't expect her to come _herself._"

"Who?" Skrch said.

"Kerd Bladeleaper," Dev said. "She's boss of all the raiders in the Clan."

"I _knew _she was somebody different," Skrch said. She explained this to Felwyn.

"Will you be reprimanded, then?" Felwyn said.

"Don't know," Dev said. "I didn't think so, but the Bladeleaper doesn't usually come this far out all alone."

"She is not alone," said Viri Starwater in Common.

"Bloody… Look, make a _noise_ before you do that, okay?" Dev said. The Elf, now walking beside Felwyn, shot the Orc an uncomprehending look.

"So who's with her?" Felwyn asked.

"A Night Elf," the Huntress said.

"I didn't see her," Skrch said.

"That 'cause I busy following dead woman back here."

Skrch hovered, looking around for the source of the voice. A moment later an Elf rose up out of the grass beside them. Long parallel slash-scars marred both of her cheeks, and other neat marks decorated most of her exposed skin. Given that she was clad mostly in two strips of leather plus a ridiculous number of weapons harnesses, this was a great many scars.

"Hey, that's _good,_" Skrch said. "Better than your Orcish, anyway."

"Yep," the Elf said. "Not so good at Orc-tongue. Plenty good at sneaking."

Skrch heard a flap of large wings as Eyrilus sailed in closer, but the crow said nothing.

"I did not hear you," Starwater said. "Not even your heart."

"Nope," the stranger said. "You too busy watching harpies and Orcs. What you doing with dead woman, Blackstare?"

"It's a long story, and I'd rather explain it to you and the Bladeleaper at once," Dev said. "Um. Felwyn Smallfinger, Skrch, this is… Well, in the clan we just call her Glaive."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

_Author's note: Oops. Raptors is a biology term for predatory birds, and I assumed everyone knew this was what I meant. I have since been informed by someone who actually _plays _WoW (thanks for the heads-up, Lorok) that in the game there are _dinosaurs _wandering around the Barrens. The word "raptor" means "thief," which is how it came to be used for both birds that swoop down out of the air and grab things and dinosaurs that run across the ground and do likewise. My bad, ladies and gents._

"A whole camp full of Undeads, huh?" Kerd Bladeleaper said.

"Yeah, Boss," Dev said, rubbing the back of her neck. "It's small, though. Maybe twenty total, unless they hid them really well. One dragon and three of these big smelly things are the heaviest units they've got. Looks like they sewed them together from random parts."

The two Orcs and Glaive stood a little apart from the others. Lightrunner and Daysleeper stood nearby, scanning with lazy eyes and far from lazy noses. The harpies were perched all over the outcrop, chattering gaily away at Felwyn (and presumably at Mir'noj as well). The crow perched up in a tree with his shoulders hunched up.

"So where'd you pick up the harpies?" Bladeleaper said.

"And whose blood you wearing?" Glaive inquired. She was watching the Huntress, who stood in the shadow of the outcrop and showed no sign that she intended to blink any time soon.

Dev glanced down at her ruined trousers. The stains were dark, but they were unmistakably there.

"Centaurs," Dev said. "That's how I met Skrch…"

She went through the events of the last day and a half as quickly as possible. Bladeleaper did not interrupt. Glaive appeared to lose interest about halfway through. She wandered over toward the tree where the crow sat and watched him for a while instead.

---

Glaive stared up at the crow. The crow watched her warily with a yellow eye. Eventually she said in Orcish,

"You pretty long way from home, bird-priest."

"Do you intend to kill me?" the crow said in his native language. Glaive grinned and replied in the same tongue.

"Not at the moment. Should I?"

The black bird stood up and hopped past Glaive onto the ground. She watched with little interest as he transformed back into an Elf.

"Do you recognize me now?"

"No," Glaive said. "I would remember a beardless druid of the talon."

"I suppose it is not surprising," he said. "We never spoke. My name is Eyrilus."

"I am the Glaive of the Tattered Banner," Glaive said. "I have no other name now."

"So I've been told," the druid said. He stood very straight, but even then he was not much taller than Glaive.

"Hey, Glaive," Kerd Bladeleaper called. "We're on the move."

"C'mon, Druid," Glaive said in Orcish. "We going to get left behind."

She turned and scampered off after the little procession that was already wending its way through the grass. She heard Eyrilus's footsteps behind her. They were audible – to another Elf's ears, at least – but he was defter on his feet than some druids she had met.

_Gonna be dark, time we get there._ Glaive found herself thinking in Orcish more and more recently. It had been some time since she had occasion to speak to an Elf.

"It is not often one sees a druid alone," she said presently. The dead Huntress was nowhere in sight, but Glaive heard her rustling through the foliage on her left. Her head was not visible above the grass, though it was only some three feet high here. As quickly as she was moving, she must be running on two and four alternately, like a ghoul. _Joints a little more bendy when you dead._

"My father's brother was also a druid," Eyrilus said. "His name was Bhenedar."

"There was a Bhenedar at my trial," Glaive said. "And when I was sentenced. I carry the marks of his talons."

On her back and shoulders, to be exact. They'd had to tie her very tightly before _that _could happen.

"Yes," Eyrilus said.

"I believe I killed him when he attacked the Tattered Banner's settlement," Glaive said. "In company with several others."

"Yes. Arinagh told Priestess Fallingrain it was you," Eyrilus said.

"And you are here to avenge your uncle?" Glaive said mildly.

Eyrilus shook his head.

"Just as well," Glaive said. "I think the harpies like you, and it would probably displease my Chieftain if I endangered any possible agreement with them and the Undeads."

"You are very certain you could kill me," Eyrilus said, without rancor.

Glaive shrugged. "I am very certain I can kill anything, Druid Eyrilus."

"So I have heard," he said, raising his eyebrows. "To be strictly fair, I've also heard it is largely correct. Aren't you curious as to why I _am _here?"

"In point of fact, no," Glaive said. She switched back to Orcish. "You try and hurt anybody in my clan, I kill you. My Chieftain says to, I kill you. Otherwise, you not my problem." She glanced back at him as he trampled through the grass. "No long grass in Ashenvale. Be flying, if I was you."

A chime and a rustle sounded from beside and behind her. A moment later the crow flapped past her. He said nothing else.

Glaive paid him no further attention. She had grown accustomed to quick dismissal, where other Elves were concerned. She veered off into the tall grass on the left instead. The Huntress might not like the game of stalking as much as Glaive did, but that did not bother Glaive in the least.

---

"What was that about?" Skrch said, as Eyrilus flapped up next to her. His back feathers seemed a little ruffled. "You know Dev's Elf?"

"I suspect she is no one's Elf," Eyrilus said. "But I know who she is, yes. She was trained in the garrison where I served with the Sentinels."

"And you don't like her?" Skrch said.

"I do," Knnr volunteered from below them, in Saark. "She is _sneaky._"

"Yeah," said Vrawk. "She moves all slinky like a lion."

"Hush, krrrahk," Skrch said mildly. "Sorry, Eyrilus. It's all I can do to not have them killing people on sight. Manners are a little past them."

"I do not mind," the crow said. "It's not very often I get to see children. There are none at the garrison, and I've been there a long time." He sounded faintly wistful.

"Really? Oh, right, Elves have that thing like Orcs where you can only have a little one if you - Um. With two of you." Skrch tried not to sound wistful herself, without complete success.

"You mean you have all these daughters and you've never… Oh," Eyrilus said. "I beg your pardon. There are no harpies in Ashenvale, you see."

"Two eggs a year," Skrch said. "Every year. And 'til the last couple days I've never even _talked _to a male of _any _species for longer than, 'Hello there. Die!'" She tipped her wings slightly, and beside her she heard a rustle as Eyrilus corrected to follow her wing draft.

"Then why are there not more harpies in the Barrens, if you continue having children on your own?" Eyrilus said.

"Oh, only queens," Skrch said. "None of my daughters will have daughters of their own, see. You only have queens if you do the other bit."

"So there _are _male harpies," Eyrilus said.

"Not that I know of," Skrch said. "They say there might be some in the Stonetalons, but nobody I talked to has ever seen one."

From the corner of her vision, she saw a shiny black eye come to bear on her as Eyrilus cocked his head.

"Then do you mind my asking…?"

"How? Oh. It just takes a male," Skrch said. "Human, Elf, Orc, doesn't matter. Probably Centaur or Tauren, even. The curse makes sure you get harpies no matter what. But I'll never do that. I'm not a… What's the word, I'm not sure there is one in Saark…"

"You aren't interested?" Eyrilus suggested.

"No, I'm not a _rapist. _That's it," Skrch said, finally dredging up the term. "I mean I know the song, every queen does, but I'm not going to go using it on somebody who'd rather be hacking me to bits with an axe, you know?"

"I think so," Eyrilus said slowly. He said nothing for long seconds.

"Sorry," Skrch said, anxious for reasons she did not understand. "I figure Elves don't talk about it much – I know the Orcs don't. I didn't mean to, you know, offend you or anything."

"No, I'm not offended," Eyrilus said. "I would not have asked if I didn't want to know."

"The other trouble is that if I had a queen, she'd probably kill me as soon as she was big enough," Skrch said. "Another reason there aren't a lot of us is that queens don't share territory. That's why my mother rolled my egg out of the nest, and it cracked, and magic leaked in, and I ended up _different._"

"Very different indeed," Eyrilus said. "I don't believe that is an ill thing, Skrch."

"Sometimes I wonder," Skrch said.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Veren Redmorning stepped out of his burrow soon after sunset, drawn by the sound of urgent voices. He finished buckling the harness of his two swords over his bare chest – the leather was cold - as he looked around in the dim light from the torches. The fact that they were lit at all meant something important was happening. Small, bright lights tended to attract local wildlife of a much more serious order than moths.

"'S going on?" said a sleepy alto from behind him.

"Go back to sleep, Nez," he said. "I'll call you if we need your help."

"'Kay," said the voice of Redmorning's partner of several months. The soft _clink _of a pair of glaives being set down followed.

"What's going on?" Redmorning asked the night at large. He was a small Orc, but the one who materialized from the shadow of the burrow beside him was even smaller. The warlock Kev'ran wore trousers and a cowl, like all the clan's warlocks, and the skull-topped staff in her hand was her only badge of office. The eyes behind the kerchief were black and deep.

"Kerd Bladeleaper seems to be returning," Kev'ran said.

"Alone?" Redmorning said.

"I do not know. Loudwhisper went to find out. Here he comes."

Veren turned to see his other bodyguard coming toward them. Kev'ran might be smaller than most Orcs, but Dib Loudwhisper more than made up for it. In the dark he seemed almost as wide as he was tall.

"Well?" Redmorning said.

"She's coming," Loudwhisper said in his wheezy bass. It took an obvious effort for him to make himself heard. It had taken weeks for Redmorning to train himself out of leaning forward whenever the other Orc spoke.

"And?" Redmorning turned toward the East side of the village, where more torchlights were appearing every moment. His guards flanked him as he walked.

"Shel'yin's there," Loudwhisper said. "Said to come get you. I can't see them. Too dark."

"Great," Veren said under his breath. _Shel'yin bothering to send somebody after me means he thinks it's _really _serious. Not just everyday we're-going-to-die serious, but somebody-get-the-Chieftain-so-it-won't-be-all-my-fault serious._

A small crowd of curious Orcs parted as Redmorning approached the watchtowers by the village's Eastern (and only) gate. A good number of the Tattered Banner Orcs were still awake after nightfall, as early as the sun set in winter here.

The warlock Shel'yin was easy to spot. He towered head and shoulders above the other Orcs. Even Dib was no taller, though he was considerably wider.

"What is it?"

"I am sorry if I woke you, Chieftain," Shel'yin said.

"You didn't, and it's not a problem. Well?"

Shel'yin's eyes glowed faintly green in the dark. "Kerd Bladeleaper is returning, and Dev Blackstare is with her."

"That sounds to me like good news," Redmorning said.

"They are surrounded by harpies," Shel'yin said.

"And they're out of range of the towers still?"

"Yes," Shel'yin said. "But that is not the problem. The harpies do not appear to be attacking them."

"That's unusual," Redmorning said.

"Yes," Shel'yin said. "And they appear to be accompanied by at least one Undead."

"How can you tell?" Redmorning said.

Shel'yin and Kev'ran looked at each other.

"He can tell," Kev'ran said.

"There is some sort of human warlock with them as well," Shel'yin said. "She is carrying a staff, at least."

"Lots of people carry staves out here," Redmorning said. "Half the green Orcs we've seen go by have been carrying staves."

"Most of them were not topped by human skulls," Shel'yin said.

"That's true." Redmorning pondered. "Hm. And Dev and Kerd are both mounted still?"

"Yes, Chieftain."

"And they're both alive - "

"At the moment," Shel'yin said flatly. "And there is no guarantee some sort of mind control is not being used."

"Mind control," Redmorning said. "Can humans do that? I'm pretty sure harpies don't have enough mind themselves."

"Not that I ever learned from my master," Shel'yin said grudgingly. "But the Undead are known to practice some forms of possession. They are very difficult to detect, Chieftain."

"Then we'll talk to them before we let them in," Redmorning said. "I can see why you called me, though I hope you're overreacting."

"I do not overreact," Shel'yin said.

"I refer you to the numerous times in the last year that you've announced the imminent and horrible death of every single Orc in the clan." Redmorning squinted into the darkness beyond the watchtowers. He thought he could make out dim shapes, but it was hard to tell.

"It could have happened," Kev'ran pointed out. "If not for Shel'yin's warnings."

"Kev'ran, you are not the most impartial observer on this subject."

"I am not sure I take your meaning, Chieftain," Kev'ran said politely. Redmorning rolled his eyes. _She's been bunking with Shel'yin for how many weeks now? Bloody Twisting Nether, I think they're both getting worse._

"Never mind," he said. "Here they come."

---

Dev Blackstare sat her wolf and listened as the Bladeleaper held a tense discussion with the Orcs behind the blinding lights. At least, the other Orcs seemed tense. Kerd Bladeleaper seemed tired and unconcerned, the way she usually did.

It was hard to tell, with much of that radiance turned on her and her party, but Dev thought the hulking shape off to the right must be Dib Loudwhisper. _So the Chieftain's already out here._

"Speak up, Dev," Kerd said after a moment. "Tell the warlocks you're still you."

"Um," Blackstare said. "I'm still me. Whatever that means."

"Yeah, that's Blackstare all right," said a voice she couldn't quite place.

"Dev was late 'cause she met this harpy, and then some Undeads," Bladeleaper said very calmly, although Dev could see the tips of arrows shining through the slits in the watchtowers. "This's Felwyn Smallfinger. She's here to speak for the Lich Phage Marrowice. This's Skrch and her brood."

"Hallo," Skrch said. She and all her fledglings stood on the ground now around Daysleeper. She had to mutter something in Saark to stop one of the curious children from wandering over to inspect the heavily armed grunts guarding the gate.

"Where's Glaive?" said another voice. This one Dev did recognize. _Yep. The Chieftain _is _watching._

"Behind you," said a voice from inside the village.

A frozen silence followed this.

"Glaive," Veren Redmorning's voice said. "I thought we agreed you weren't going to do that any more."

"Sorry, Chieftain," said a completely unrepentant Glaive. "Been a boring day."

"Yes, for you I'm sure it has," said Redmorning's dry tenor. "Shel'yin, if you tell me Glaive is possessed, I will hand you both your ears."

"Evidently she is not," Shel'yin said. "Besides, I am sure Rokhyel Shadebreaker would tell us if she was."

"Yes, where _is _Shadebreaker? Never mind. He's behind me too, isn't he."

"Yes, Chieftain," said a sepulchral baritone.

"Right. Fine. Is everyone accounted for now? Miss Smallfinger, do you mind having your companion identify herself?"

"This is the Huntress Viri Starwater," Felwyn said from beside Dev. "She's here as an observer."

"All right. Everyone back up and let them in."

A faint grumbling ensued in the front ranks. More than one of the grunts was eyeing Starwater and Skrch with misgiving.

"I really do _not _want to repeat myself," Redmorning's voice said. The grunts parted as if by magic. Dev urged Daysleeper forward. A moment later everyone was inside the village proper. The wooden doors, topped with crude stakes, swung slowly shut behind them.

"Everyone who isn't here for a reason, clear off," Redmorning said. Dev could see him now, dwarfed by most of his clan in the light from the torches. He had not taken time to put on a tunic, but the queue on top of his head was immaculate.

"That means you _too_, Dirksnapper. All of you. Blackstare, I'm going to assume Kerd has already taken your report?"

"Yes, Chieftain," Blackstare said. She looked around at the village's buildings. Gray Orcs stood looking out of most of the burrows, obeying the Chieftain's instructions but still trying to see what was going on. _Demons, it's good to be home._

"She's done very well, Chieftain," Kerd Bladeleaper said.

"Good. Go get some rest, Dev. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Thanks, Chieftain," Dev said. "I'll see you later, Skrch."

"Good night, Warrior," Skrch said, waving a wing talon. "Sleep well."

Dev swung down from Daysleeper's back and started to lead him off toward the larger burrow where the other wolves generally slept.

She was looking over her shoulder at the harpies when a very large fist hit her in the solar plexus.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The next few seconds were very crowded. Dev staggered back with an _oof, _then stood doubled over, trying to reinflate her lungs. She heard a rush of wings as her would-be assailant was mobbed by five shrieking little harpies. The sudden cacophony was simultaneous with the metallic _shhrik _and _hissss _of weapons and mana being readied by many Orcs at once.

Then Skrch ran across the ground past her, blaring something in Saark. Dev strongly suspected she knew what it was, but she was still preoccupied with the bright little spots in front of her eyes. She straightened up, gasping in air, as she heard the harpy speak in Orcish:

"Don't shoot! Tell them not to shoot, Chieftain. Please? Girls, get off the nice Orc _right now._"

"He hit Dev," Serrw complained.

"Yeah, little misunderstanding there," Dev said. She paused to breathe. Daysleeper snorted. Dev resolved to get even with him later. _I _know _you heard him coming. _"My fault, I should've told you that might happen."

She walked a little shakily over to see who it was. The large grunt who was just now sitting up was unarmored, shirtless, and covered with a number of scratches on his bare arms where the krrrahk had been holding him down. _They've got to be bloody strong for their size. And isn't that…_

"Redback, I didn't know you cared," Dev wheezed. "You could've picked a better time."

"May I second that?" said Veren Redmorning's voice from behind them. "Everyone stand down, please."

The Tattered Banner reluctantly sheathed their weapons and faded back into their dwellings. Silda Redback looked sheepish. Dev turned to face her Chieftain, mortified, then had to stop as the little spots came back.

"I'm real sorry, Chieftain," she said. "It's not going to happen again."

"That's for sure," Redback said. She heard him dusting himself off.

"Here," Skrch said. She clapped her wing-talons together, and Dev heard the chime as her spell healed the grunt's scratches. Blackstare did not turn around. She felt her complexion darkening already, and if she had to look at the other Orc she might have no choice but to strangle him with her bare hands.

"Sorry, Chief Redmorning," Skrch said. She snapped something else at the small harpies, who were watching Silda Redback with bright and unwavering stares. "We've all gotten to like the warrior here. Well, as much as the little ones understand that idea at all. They just didn't want to see her get hurt."

"That's very commendable," Veren Redmorning said. "Apparently Redback feels the same way, which is why he did what he did."

"Not any more," Silda muttered.

"Redback, you're dismissed," Redmorning said. Dev listened to his heavy footsteps retreating. "You haven't been around Orcs very much, Skrch?"

"I've watched green Orcs from a ways off," Skrch said. "And of course they try and rob my nest every so often."

Felwyn Smallfinger said something in Common. Lrfk said,

"The Necromancer says she thinks she can help here."

Veren Redmorning inclined his head politely. "I'm sorry, Miss. Please do."

"Lrfk," Felwyn said.

The harpy settled herself more comfortably on the crossbar atop Felwyn's staff.

"War Chief Thrall's people usually plan to start a fight if they hit each other," Lrfk said.

The Chieftain's bodyguards looked at each other behind his back. Dib Loudwhisper chuckled. Dev was surprised she could not feel the sound through her feet. Redmorning raised his eyebrows.

"Really?" he said. "Then things really _have _changed since the last time we saw the Warsong and the rest of them. Er. I mean, that's true here also. But when a _grunt _hits a _raider _or vice versa, it usually means something fairly specific."

"Ooooh," Skrch said, bobbing her head. "That's different from the green ones, all right."

"But there's a time and a place for that, and this wasn't it," Dev said. "I'd like you to know I didn't expect Silda to do that, Chieftain."

"So I gathered," Redmorning said. He smiled tiredly at Dev. "Go on, Blackstare. Nobody's holding it against you."

"Thank you, Chieftain," Dev said, and turned and fled, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her.

---

_Bloody Hellfire, _Veren Redmorning thought. _That could have been really ugly._ He looked at Kerd. She nodded quickly and turned to lead Lightrunner after Blackstare. Glaive and Shadebreaker seemed to have vanished, but they did that often.

"If you'd like to come into the town hall, we could talk more privately there," he said to the Necromancer. The Human listened as the blue-black harpy translated.

"Yes, of course," was the reply.

"Skrch, your children must be hungry by this time," he said to the red-feathered harpy. A not-quite-comprehensible chorus of eager chirps answered this.

"Hush!" Skrch said. "They always are, I'm afraid."

"Shel'yin, see they have whatever they'd like to eat," Redmorning said.

"Oh, thank you." Skrch bobbed again, fortunately missing Shel'yin's double take. "I'm sure Eyrilus is starving, too. Eyrilus? He was here a minute ago. Follow the warlock, children. Thank you, Chief Redmorning."

Veren watched in bemusement as she opened her wings and herded the five fledglings after Shel'yin. The warlock cast a baleful glance over his shoulder. Redmorning ignored it.

"It's this way," he said, and turned to move westward along the village's one torchlit street. Glowing eyes, green and red, watched them from doorways and window slits. The Undead Elf took up a position behind Felwyn Smallfinger's left shoulder, parallel to where Kev'ran walked behind Veren. She seemed to watch nothing but the ground at her feet, but Redmorning was used to living around at least one Elf by this time. _She can probably hear every single heartbeat in the village. Plus whatever odd senses she has as an Undead. I still don't totally comprehend what Shadebreaker sees and hears._

Felwyn Smallfinger said something in the Common tongue.

"She says your mana is different," Lrfk said. "Different from the green Orcs, and different from ours."

"Yes, and we're still not quite sure how," Redmorning said. "It's not demon magic any more, but it's not from the spirits, either. And we don't serve any gods that I know of."

"It's not death mana," Lrfk said. "It's not storm mana, because I would recognize that." Smallfinger did not seem to have any trouble carrying her weight on the staff. _The harpy carcasses we've had to haul off have been light as birds, _Redmorning recalled.

Smallfinger said something else. Redmorning noted peripherally that one of her eyes seemed to have no iris. It shone blue when the torchlight fell on it, and Smallfinger did not squint at the bright light.

"It's wilder," Lrfk said. "It's… Sorry, Chieftain, my Orcish is not quite as good as my mother's. It's like there's a pattern, but it's too small to see? Like when you look at a village from the air, and it's just a lot of specks. Then when you get really close you see an Orc with trousers, but the trousers look plain gray. Then you get even closer and the fabric looks like a forest. The closer you get, the more you see. The further off you are, the less sense it makes."

Felwyn said a single word.

"I'm sorry, Chieftain. I don't know that one," Lrfk said.

"I do," Kev'ran said quietly. "It is chaos."

"Chaos," Felwyn repeated in Orcish. "Yes."

"The demons called us Chaos Orcs," Redmorning said carefully. "We don't do things that way any more. Here's the town hall, Necromancer." Loudwhisper held up the leather curtain that would serve as a door until Merd Quickdigger and his crew got around to making wooden doors for everything. Redmorning went in without thinking, then wondered if the Necromancer would take it for rudeness. _On Draenor you don't send a stranger in first unless you plan an ambush. Things are probably different here. _

"They called you that, but you weren't," Smallfinger said through Lrfk. She followed him inside with no sign that she had even noticed. She said something to the Undead Elf as Redmorning groped for the lamp and the flint by the door.

He heard the Huntress say something very cold. _I'll bet I know what it is, too. "Don't go in there by yourself. What am I going to tell Lord Marrowice if you don't come back?"_

Felwyn said something further in a firm tone. Redmorning lit the lamp in time to see the Elf turn and stalk from the room.

"Dib, Kev'ran, stay outside," Redmorning said. He closed the leather curtain without waiting to see who was going to stand where. _They'll work it out._

"Would you like to sit down? I'm afraid we haven't had time to make many chairs yet," Redmorning said. Felwyn went to sit on one of the wooden stools without waiting for a translation. Lrfk hopped onto another seat, and Felwyn handed her the staff to hold in her wing talons. Redmorning pulled a third stool over to face the Necromancer.

_Demons, _he thought as he sat down. It was the first time he'd been able to look really closely at Felwyn Smallfinger. _She looks a _lot _younger than the Shadebreaker. Admittedly, Shadebreaker is dead, but… This one looks like practically a child still._

"What was I saying?" Lrfk translated Felwyn's next question.

"Something about the demons," Redmorning said.

"Yes," Felwyn said. She continued. Lrfk rubbed her head idly against the skull on the end of the staff as she translated. A small bird skull in her hair made a _clink _noise, bone on bone. _No hair, _Redmorning recognized silently. _It's all feathers._

"The Necromancer says the demons might call it chaos, but they've sown order wherever they went," Lrfk said. "It's a fiery and awful order, but it's very – what was the word – crude? Your mana comes from _you. _It comes from the things that make sense to your clan, but no one else. There's the hitting thing. There's the fact that you're led by a little Orc who doesn't look like a fighter, no offense meant - "

Redmorning made a dismissive gesture, caught up in the discourse.

"There's the way you took in the scarred Elf and the dead man. It's what makes you different."

"She understands all this from five minutes of conversation?" Redmorning said.

"Both of us together," Lrfk said. "Well, all three of us. Sorry, Mir'noj." She tapped the human skull delicately with a wing talon. "Felwyn understands things a lot faster since we found each other."

"I see," Redmorning said, although he was beginning to feel completely lost. "And I'm sure Kev'ran would love to have this conversation with you as well, but I'm afraid we've wandered from our purpose. The Necromancer must be getting tired by now."

"Oh, she doesn't sleep a lot," Lrfk said. "It comes from living with the dead, who never sleep at all." She spoke with Felwyn Smallfinger for a moment. "She says if you're tired, we can continue tomorrow."

"If she doesn't mind, I think I would rather," Redmorning said. _Though I doubt I'm going to sleep any time soon. _"We will make a lodging available to both of you, and to the Huntress also, if she needs or wants one. I'm afraid they won't be very fancy."

Lrfk told this to Felwyn. The Human girl laughed.

"Once they had to remind Lord Marrowice that live humans need blankets," Lrfk said. "We'll do just fine with whatever you've got, thanks."


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Dev Blackstare was awakened by the sound of someone lifting the leather flap of her burrow. She reached for her scimitar.

"Silda Redback, if that's you, you have two seconds to go away before I carve you a new nostril in a _really _inconvenient place."

A red-maned head poked in through the flap. Skrch squinted in the dark.

"Dev? It's me."

"Oh, Skrch. Sorry."

"You okay? I saw your commander follow you back."

"I'm fine. She wanted to make sure I knew the Chieftain wasn't mad at me. Did you need something?"

"Um. Well…" Skrch shifted from foot to foot, causing her head to rock from side to side. "The fledglings can't sleep. They're not easy in a strange place and the tower roofs are too steep."

"Can we sleep in here? With you?" A much smaller head poked in further down, and a second later Blackstare recognized the tiny rogue Knnr.

"Please?" said Trrilik from behind them.

Dev laughed, for the first time all day. "Sure. Come on in."

One large harpy and five small ones crowded into the burrow, scuffing their talons in the grass on the floor.

"Can Eyrilus come in, too?" Ckkk said. Dev sat up and surveyed the large crow silhouetted in the low doorway. It was hard to tell in the dark, but his posture seemed a little embarrassed.

"Eyrilus is an _Elf_," Dev said. "That seems sort of wrong."

"Not right now," Skrch said. "He's a crow. And he's going to stay one all night. Right, Eyrilus?"

"Oh, certainly," the tenor voice said. "It would be far too crowded if I were six feet tall."

Dev considered. _If I leave him outside, the odds are good some genius will take a shot at him. And Skrch is mostly right about people so far._

"Okay," she said. "Come on."

---

Some time later and a long way East, Phage Marrowice glided to and fro in front of the necropolis. It lacked something, but it was the only way he could pace without any legs. His sense of time was precise, and he was sure the sun would be up quite soon.

Everything was quiet over by the gold mine, where the acolytes still slept. Every so often an abomination lumbered past the towers, completing their endless circuit. The ghouls ran about the camp aimlessly, snuffling and muttering to themselves. Phage heard an occasional squeak as a ghoul encountered a small creature unlucky enough to wander into blighted ground.

One particular ghoul stopped next to the Lich, its head turning back and forth as it watched him.

"Hnrrrgh?" it said.

"Hm? Oh." He paused to scratch the back of its skull. The ghoul made a rattling noise that any reasonable person would find horrifying, a terrible parody of a purr.

_Of course, if I were squeamish at all I would have figured out a way to annihilate myself a very long time ago._ The way Phage saw things, you could hate yourself, or you could just accept what you couldn't change and move on. Life, or rather unlife, had been fearful, lonely, and irritating as part of the Scourge. Now…

Well, at least he wasn't lonely any more. He gave the ghoul a final pat, and it snarled in a surprisingly happy way and padded off.

_And where have Gray and the dragon got to? _Phage wondered. The shadow of giant wings had not passed him in over an hour, so they were clearly not patrolling the camp. The dragon's flame was bright and loud; it would certainly be detectable if they were attacking anything nearby.

"Shades?" Phage said.

No one answered. _So they're still out scouting, or else they've followed Gray wherever it is he went. _

"Anyone else who can speak in complete sentences?"

A moment later a banshee floated out of the necropolis beside him.

"Did you require something, Lord Marrowice?" she said in her ragged voice.

"Do you know where Gray and your compatriot have gone?"

"No, Lord," the banshee said, smoothing back ethereal tatters of dark hair. A ghostly pointed ear was only just visible on one side. "But I think they will be back very soon."

"Why? Can you sense her?"

"No, Lord. I can see them coming from the East."

Phage turned to look. A flapping speck was indeed visible against the graying horizon.

"Oh," he said. A moment later a thought occurred to him. "What were you doing inside the necropolis?"

"Necromancer Ner'zirhud lent me a volume he found in one of the mounds we opened. I can read some of the old letters."

"Really? How were you turning the pages?" Phage asked.

The sound of dragon wings drowned out the answer. A moment later, the great beast coasted in past the towers and settled awkwardly on the ground. Phage had to lean hard to avoid being blown out of the air. The banshee remained perfectly still, tendrils of hair and skirt waving gently.

"_There _you are, Gray," Phage said, when the great pinions were folded. "And… Dragon."

The dragon shook her head.

"You want me to call you something else? What?"

The skeleton leaned around the dragon's head, clattering his jaw. "Krrrr," Gray said.

"What?"

"Krrrr…"

The dragon extended a foreclaw and wrote in the dust.

"I'm afraid I can't read any Elven tongues," Phage Marrowice said patiently.

"It says 'Kirv,' Lord," the banshee beside him said.

"I see. And what about you?"

The banshee was becoming harder to see as the sky lightened, but he thought she looked startled. "I… Would like to be called Fractalle," she said.

"Kirv and Fractalle?"

The banshee shrugged. The dragon blew air through her nostrils.

"Right. Fine," Phage said. "Now perhaps we can continue on the subject of where you've been for the last hour and a half, Dragon Kirv?"

"Crrrsss," Gray said. The dragon drew two lines crossing each other at right angles.

"You went to Crossroads? Why?"

"Fffff," Gray said. The dragon extended her right foreclaws, like a woman admiring her nails. The ends were dark with dried blood.

"There was a battle outside the gates," Phage guessed.

"Sss," said Gray. Kirv shifted slightly, and Phage saw what was draped across the dragon's back in front of him.

"Take that to Ner'zirhud _right now. _No, you stay here. Ghouls!"

He was surrounded almost at once. One or two of the ghouls were still chewing.

"Take this to Ner'zirhud and don't eat it. Understand?"

"Aaargh," said the brightest of the ghouls, and moved forward to seize the body of what had once been a Human in heavy armor. The others, quickly catching on, moved to help. The man's blond hair dragged in the dust as they pulled him along by his feet. His face, where Phage glimpsed it, seemed young and faintly surprised, as if he hadn't seen Death coming. _I don't see any blood, and his neck is at a normal angle. He must have a broken back._

"Were there any others?" Phage asked.

"Ssss," Gray said.

"Go get as many as you can carry before they start burning them. Try to bring the ones in the best shape, and get Humans if you can. If you're attacked, flee. Go."

This time he was blasted several feet backward by the pulse of air as Kirv the Dragon took off. He righted himself and came face-to-face with Fractalle.

"Why Humans, Lord? Orcs are stronger," she said. It was a measure of the cohesion and trust that the camp had developed that she asked such a question. _It would never happen in the Scourge._

"Because I don't speak any Orcish, Huntress Starwater isn't here to translate, and I can't afford to wait until she comes back. I want to raise thinkers," Phage said. "The sooner we get them here, the more likely we'll be able to get their brains working before they rot. We'll get ghouls and abominations out of the rest."

"But then they will remember," Fractalle said. "Will they not refuse to serve you?"

"It is a risk, but considering the normal Human attitude toward Undead, I doubt it," Phage said. "I think they know what will happen if they try to rejoin those who know them. If they're strong-willed, they will wish to continue to exist. If not, well, they'll be useful material irregardless."

"That is wisdom," Fractalle said.

"I suppose we had better hope so," Phage Marrowice said.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

"Good morning, Necromancer," Redmorning said. This time he held up the town hall's flap and waited. Felwyn glided through in front of him, again without apparently noticing.

"Good morning, Chieftain," Felwyn said.

---

Huntress Starwater squatted with her back to the wall of the oversized hut that the Orcs called a town hall. The Chieftain's bodyguards were quiet, as they had been yesterday, and once more Viri felt relieved. "Grateful" was still a little difficult as a concept, though her persistent old self kept trying to suggest the word. (Glaive's different sort of persistence had already successfully reminded her of the concept of _annoyance._)

The Orc village was _loud, _reverberating like a gong struck beside her ear Hearts beat all around her, bigger and louder than Elves' hearts, blood screaming through the veins. The scraps of meat and clothing found throughout the place were too small for her death sense to find them. They brought her no comfort. She clung to her center, but that cold light seemed far away in this place of aggressive, thriving life. The necromancer's eye was too small, the pinpoint almost drowned out by the dark shadow of the Orc Chieftain close by.

But she had found one more thing to cling to, an anchor for her sanity (such as it presently was, for some part of her had once rejoiced in living things). The light was not as bright as her Lord's, true. But it was old, and Undead, and its dark gleam held steady. For now Viri held on to it, and listened, in case the necromancer should need her.

---

"I think I understand," Redmorning said. "You're all alone here, you have no allies, and everything you've met so far is trying to kill you."

"More or less," Lrfk said. Felwyn nodded.

"Tell Lord Marrowice I'll consider any treaty he wants to propose," Redmorning said.

---

_He is coming._

Viri raised her head as the gentle slosh of veins working without a heart drew closer. The other – the softer heartbeat, the Elf with the scars – was nearing from another direction entirely. Viri tensed slightly as she tried to keep track of both, and the Orcish bodyguards, and the conversation behind her.

A moment later, Rokhyel Shadebreaker stalked around the corner of a burrow and into her line of sight. Strictly by looks, he might be mistaken for a Human, tall and lank. His mail tunic was dull and old, his cloak gray and ragged. He held a notched longsword in his left hand.

"Hallo, Shadebreaker," the larger guard said.

"Good morning, Loudwhisper. Kev'ran. I trust you slept well." A lock of his hair fell forward as he nodded at each. It was bright silver, much whiter than Viri's.

"Sure," Loudwhisper said. "Least _I _did."

"And how did you pass the night?" Kev'ran said.

"Walking," Shadebreaker said. "I don't sleep."

"No, I suppose you would not. Where is the Glaive?"

"On the roof," Viri Starwater said. The other three looked at her as she stood up straight.

"That's correct," Shadebreaker said.

"Ooh, got me that time," Glaive's voice said from above them. "I spend too much time 'round deaf Orcs and cheating dead man. Getting sloppy."

"Cheating?" Shadebreaker said. Starwater stared at him, trying to understand what was wrong about him. There _were _Undead with moving blood, she knew that. But… There was something else…

"You have not died," she said.

The tall Human raised a white eyebrow.

"If your hearing is as Glaive claims, you know I do not breathe," he said. "My heart does not beat. I am not alive."

"You are too perfect," Viri said. "You have no marks. I can see the apples of your eyes." They were green, startling in his white face.

"Did you ever hear of the Medallion of Kashinath?" the dead man asked.

Viri froze, memory struggling to make itself felt. There had been something. _A failed mission like so many other failed missions, _said the voice of the veteran Sentinel who had fought in and around Ashenvale for so long. _A cave, and a flame in the dark._

"It was… Guarded by…" she whispered.

"A revenant of fire," Shadebreaker said. "Yes. You see only my new flesh. I walked in my bones for some thirty years."

The tent flap rustled. Viri turned to see the Orc Chieftain's head emerge from the dim interior of the town hall.

"Lrfk says we're about to have company," Veren Redmorning said. "Shadebreaker, you mind telling Darksun we've got twenty-three centaurs coming, and they're his problem?"

"Not at all, Chieftain," Shadebreaker said. He nodded and turned to walk quickly away. Glaive somersaulted down from the roof of the hall and ran lightly after him. Redmorning ducked back inside.

"He will not oversee the defense?" Viri said.

"It is not necessary," Kev'ran said.

"Hey," Loudwhisper said suddenly. "How'd the harpy know that?"

---

"You can see the gates fairly well from here," Redmorning said, ushering Felwyn into the small tower atop the town hall. Felwyn sat on the short bench in front of the East window. Her legs dangled slightly under her robe; she was shorter than an Orc. Lrfk hopped from the staff onto her shoulder, peering out the narrow window slit.

"This way you'll be able to give your Chi – your Lord an idea of how we fight," Veren said. Lrfk murmured something in Common. Felwyn nodded.

"She can't see so far any more," Lrfk said. "Not with her live eye. But I can. I'll tell her what's going on."

"Her _live _eye?" Redmorning said.

---

Skrch woke suddenly, feather mane bristling, senses alert for danger. She listened hard for several seconds before she realized her daughters chipper voices had awakened her. _Which means something's going to die, or has already._

"Rrrgh ah," she muttered as she straightened up, unfolding her wing-talons from around her legs. She'd gotten used to sleeping with her head on her knees and her back to a wall, one of the only ways to brood eggs with a body nearer Elf than bird. The wall of Dev's burrow was dirt, much softer than the stone of the cave had been.

"Where are you going?" she demanded of Serrw's disappearing tail feathers. A moment later, her daughter's head reappeared in the burrow's doorway.

"The Orcs are playing a game!" she said. "Ckkk and Vrawk went to see what it is. Can I go too?"

"Oh, _Scrrrrrrr. _Go find them and tell them not to kill any gray Orcs!"

"Jhha, Mother," Serrw said reluctantly. "Can we kill centaurs?"

"Only if they try to kill you. Or the Orcs," Skrch said, but Serrw was already gone. Skrch stretched her wings as she looked around the burrow. Trillik and Knnr were still both present, huddled up drowsily on either side of Eyrilus. The great crow watched her with a bright black eye.

"Trouble?" he said.

"Un huh," Dev Blackstare said. She already had her sword harness buckled and was reaching for her helmet.

"Can we go, too?" Trillik said.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

"You know what I love about these guys?" Lev Darksun said. He dropped his left shoulder, letting a spear point clang off the only armor on his body. Then he brought his axe around in a tight arc that culminated in an intersection of the blade and the spear-wielder's neck. Darksun did not bother to duck the resulting arterial spurt. The now-headless centaur fell over slowly as his knees buckled.

"Slow learners?" said his partner, Gedu Pouncefaster. She tightened her knees, pulling her wolf to a stop next to him. "Heh. Pretty good one, for a big slow grunt. Oh, and dumb."

"Yeah, you too. Look out, Pouncefaster."

Gedu leaned back in her seat, then hacked another centaur's arm off with her scimitar.

"Hey, Lev," she said.

"Yeah, Gedu."

"How come we got harpies attacking the centaurs?"

"Huh?"

---

"Oooh, this is _fun,_" Vrawk crowed. She shifted her feet where she stood atop a dead centaur, leaving further scratches on the body. "I get dibs on this one's shinies, everybody."

No one seemed to object. This might have been because none of the Orcs spoke Saark, but that was unlikely to occur to Vrawk. She surveyed the ruin of the centaur's face with some glee. She might not have any magic, but she scrrring well had _talons._

"Hey, look! That big one's getting back up!" Knnr called from a few yards away. "And I made all those scratches and they're all _gone_."

"Neat trick," Ckkk said, flapping past Vrawk. "Let's kill him again."

---

"Oh yeah, I forgot about those," Skrch said, hovering over the small battle. The centaur khan was swinging ineffectually at the krrrahk, shouting in his own language.

"I thought he was dead," Eyrilus said. He hovered beside her, watching. He had spun faerie fire over a large number of the centaurs, but Skrch guessed he was out of mana. It didn't matter much, given that the khan was the last centaur standing.

"He was," Skrch said. "Some of them can do that. Only once in a day or so, though. It's not going to do him any good. See?"

"Those are powerful talons your daughters have," Eyrilus said.

"Jhha. Yes. And Serrw's stronger than the others, on account of being the oldest. See how she took the back of his head right off?"

"Yes," Eyrilus said.

"That doesn't bother you?" Skrch said curiously.

"I am not enjoying it," Eyrilus said. "But it _was _necessary. And I can do it myself, if I have to. I was a soldier, you know."

"Course you were," Skrch said. "Sorry. Why'd you leave?"

"I didn't leave," Eyrilus said. "I was discharged for refusing to follow an order."

"Really? What order was… Hey!" She turned, distracted, to coast down toward her daughters. "No fighting. Serrw, you let go of Knnr's hair!"

"_I _killed him," Serrw said. She released her hold on the smaller rogue's feather mane with great reluctance. "_I _get his pretty necklace."

Skrch examined the silvery amulet, restraining an urge to snatch it and carry it away. "And what do you say, Knnr?"

"I killed him first," Knnr said.

"Okay," Skrch said. "Then you can have his bracelets. They have beads on them, see? Shiny. _If _the Orcs say you can keep them."

The ring of fifteen bemused grunts and one raider found themselves the focus of five sets of hard little eyes.

"Excuse me," Skrch said. "Can my daughters have his jewelry? And the other ones they killed?"

"Sure," said a stocky Orc. "We don't want 'em. You'd be Skrch, right?"

"That's me," Skrch said. "Go ahead, girls. Remember, we don't eat anything that used to talk, Jhha?" She turned back to the Orc. "How about you? I saw you yesterday, right?"

"Lev Darksun," said the Orc.

"Oh, yes. And this is Eyrilus – oh. He was here a minute ago. Did anybody get hurt, Commander Darksun?"

"Anybody?" Darksun said, looking around.

"I did, Boss."

"Who's that? Come on out, no reason to be ashamed."

"Yeah, there is," the raider spoke up. "Wasn't even two to one."

"Shut up, Gedu. Oh, it's you, Fallsharder. Not to worry, warrior, we'll get that arm fixed right up. Go see the warlocks."

"No need," Skrch said, and clapped her wing talons together. The increasingly dark-faced grunt paused in midstep as the bleeding hole in his shoulder started to close.

"Hey, that's like that druid magic thing," he said.

"Sort of," Skrch said. "Sorry, it'll scar still."

"We don't mind scars," Darksun said.

---

Felwyn Smallfinger stood in the shadow of the town hall, absently watching the open space in front of the building. She had delivered the awkwardly-translated scroll from Phage Marrowice. It was now up to Veren Redmorning to read it and compose a message of his own.

Viri Starwater crouched beside her, still as only the dead can be. Lrfk circled far above, trailing visible sparks even in daylight. Felwyn felt the power building, crackling between them like lightning in a box.

Her Undead eye saw further every hour. She could see Mir'noj clearly now, if she turned her head. He was no longer just a cold presence behind her shoulder.

"There's more, now that we're together. Death and the Storm," she whispered, for Mir'noj's ears only.

_But you must do something with it, _said Mir'noj. Felwyn closed her living eye and turned her head. A tall young man looked at her from under his hood, his face painted in the traditional manner of the Scourge's acolytes. His nose was long and hooked, and his face was ascetic as it had been in life. He'd been handsome, in a severe sort of way. Felwyn hadn't noticed that when he was alive, back when he was a bully and a zealot.

"What happens if we don't?" Felwyn said.

_I do not know. I fear it._

"Fear?" Felwyn said. "I thought you weren't afraid of anything. You faced an angry lich."

_And died._

"Well, yes," Felwyn said. "Nothing could've stopped that."

_You've given me the immortality he would have denied me. I will not forget that. It is why I warn you now._

"Thank you," Felwyn said. She smiled at him. "But don't worry. I'm sure there will be lots to do. You'll help us still, won't you?"

_Of course, _said the ghost of Mir'noj. _I would not wish another to be the bearer of my remains._

"That's very sweet of you," Felwyn said.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The black ships sailed into Ratchet well into the afternoon. The sun was hot, but a cold fog seemed to travel with the two vessels. Ice tinkled off the rigging as the ragged sails were struck, folding like black wings. No hand touched the ropes, and no one stood at the helm, but the ships glided into port just the same.

"At last."

"It was indeed a long journey, Lord Darkhallow," said the necromancer, looking with misgiving at the dusty shore.

"I wasn't talking to you, Gen'dirhil," Darkhallow sighed, adjusting his grip on the hilt of his runeblade. Whitecleaver seemed to echo him, a faint hiss rising from the ornate steel. The blade was enormous, far too large for any conventional scabbard.

"Yes, Lord." The necromancer's voice cringed, though he did not do it physically. He was far smaller than Darkhallow, even discounting the death knight's bulky armor.

_Undernourished peasant, _Darkhallow thought. A faint mist rose in front of his eyes as the black metal of his breastplate steamed in the sun, rising and falling as he breathed. The hot breeze puffed at his white hair, blowing it back from his face.

"See that the footsoldiers don't attack anyone while we're in town," Lord Darkhallow said. "We have far to go, and little time."

"But Lord, they have not tasted fresh flesh in nearly - "

"So take the smallest ghoul and divide it," Darkhallow said. "There will be plenty of opportunity to feed and recruit once we're clear of Ratchet. See to it."

"Yes, Lord," Gen'dirhil said, and retreated gratefully toward the hold.

The runeblade whispered, many voices just beneath hearing. Darkhollow was never sure if anyone else could hear it. He was not about to ask his underlings, who were either petrified of him or likely to take it as a sign of familiarity.

"We have plenty of gold," he said to Whitecleaver. "That ought to make us more than welcome here, once the goblins realize we carry no plague. For now, at least. Perhaps we could purchase one or two slaves. Would you like that?"

The metal seemed to twist under his hands.

"I would, too," said Lord Darkhallow.

---

"So we're on our way again," Skrch said, shouting to be heard over the wind.

"Apparently so," Eyrilus said. They circled above the travel party, which now consisted of Felwyn Smallfinger and Lrfk, Dev Blackstare, and the warlock Shel'yin, who kept staring covertly at a point in the air behind Felwyn's shoulder. Viri Starwater must be somewhere nearby, but Skrch couldn't see her.

The five krrrahk bobbed and swung in wider circles, admiring their new finery and talking excitedly in the manner of adolescent girls everywhere. It was probably just as well that Skrch couldn't hear what they were currently talking about.

_At least the Orcs seem to like them pretty well._

She hadn't gotten to talk to the Chieftain the way she'd hoped, because Felwyn had announced that she was needed back at the Undead camp. _Maybe later on. He seems like a reasonable Orc. I'll bet we could work something out._

"Hey, Eyrilus," Skrch said.

"Yes, Skrch."

"You get a feeling we're being followed?"

"Yes," Eyrilus said. "I do."  
"I think it's that Glaive Elf. I'll bet we wouldn't be able to see her. Think her and the Huntress are playing hide-and-sneak again?"

"I doubt it. If she does not want her presence known, she will not compromise her invisibility by taunting Huntress Starwater."

"I was meaning to ask you," Skrch started. Then a movement off to the North caught her eye. "Oh, scrrr-ahh..."

"What?"

"Look over there. No, that way," Skrch said. "If you don't look into the sun you can see her… Girls! Stay here and protect the Orcs and the Human, okay?" Skrch wheeled in the air and beat North. The crow pivoted with her, beating his smaller wings hard to keep up.

"Sure," Serrw called from behind her. "We like the Orcs."

"Oh, good," Skrch muttered. "And here I thought Orcs were reasonable people. Scrrr. Eyrilus, I hate to ask you, but..."

"I will watch your daughters," the crow said.

"I'm afraid that's not all," Skrch said. "I noticed you don't seem to like the Orcs much, but I want you to make sure they do right by my girls if I don't come back. Remind them that they owe us, if you've got to."

"I do not think they will forget," Eyrilus said. "They are an honorable people. Do you really think the situation is that serious?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Skrch said. "Thanks, Eyrilus. See you."

---

"Hey, where's she going?" Dev Blackstare said. Daysleeper whined as the wind blew toward them. _I don't smell anything_. She did see the herd of zhevras off in the distance, scattering as if a demon were at their heels.

The warlock Shel'yin raised his head, squinting. "There is another harpy," he said. "A very large one."

"Red feathers," Lrfk said calmly. She resettled herself on the staff's crossbar, folding her wings tightly. "Another queen."

"So why don't they go help Skrch?" Dev said, staring upward at the fledglings. "Why don't you?"

"Because mother is a queen, too," Lrfk said.

---

"Oh, great," Skrch said, her voice nearly lost in the rush of air. The other queen was big, her wingspan near twenty feet across. Her feather mane was dirty and unkempt, smears of dried blood and grease streaking her face. _But under all that she's…_

"How old are you?" Skrch shouted as she drew closer.

"Fourteen!" the other queen called back. "I'm Vinnr and I'm _way _bigger than you. You fly away now and I'll let you live and only eat your krrrahk."

_Fourteen, _Skrch thought. _Gods. _

"You're not even laying yet," Skrch said. "Go home and kill your sisters."

"Did that," said the new queen. "Need more space. You've got lots. Tell me your name so I can kill you."

"There's a _reason _why I've got a territory twenty miles wide," Skrch said. The other queen looked blank. "Don't be stupid!"

"You're the stupid one," the other harpy said. She turned and started to climb, the closest to straight up that raptor pinions can manage. Her tail feathers were ragged, bits of straw tangled in the plumes.

"I'm Skrch!" Skrch screamed after her. She turned to circle toward the ground as the other queen grabbed for altitude. "Well, she's obviously too dumb to live, so that's one comfort," Skrch said. She glanced upward as she pulled up a few feet above the bare dirt of the path. Vinnr was clearly visible, hovering far above. _She's not even a hundred feet up. She must think she's going to smash me like a bug. _

This suspicion was confirmed as the other queen adjusted her position, folded her wings, and dropped like a stone. Skrch waited. Vinnr shrieked piercingly as she drew closer, a sound so penetrating that Skrch was sure the Orcs must be able to hear it from half a mile away.

"The curse," she said to herself. "Acting like you _feel_."

Vinnr spread her talons. Skrch twisted her tail feathers and flapped her wings, driving herself hard to the left. There was a massive _thud. _A small cloud of dirty red feathers floated up, then subsided.

Skrch alighted carefully a few yards away. She waited a few moments before approaching the body. No harpy would be patient enough to fake it for long. She prodded an outstretched wing that lay bent at an unlikely angle. Nothing. Skrch pushed at a shoulder, rolling the wings off Vinnr's head. The other harpy's neck was intact, but her chest was odd-looking, gone concave as the impact stove in the bones.

Skrch heard a whirr of wings. She looked up to see Eyrilus turning into an Elf as he landed.

"How it usually happens," Skrch said. "Stabbed by her own ribs. See that more than you see a caved skull."

"This has happened before," Eyrilus said. Skrch braced one foot on Vinnr's body as she glanced at him.

"Every so often," she said. "Usually it's rogues and wind witches, you know, in a flock. Sisters who've managed to live with each other. It's always the biggest ones who try to power dive. They don't _think._" She spread her wing talons as she spoke. She was reaching forward when a purple hand locked around her wrist.

"What are you doing? Isn't it enough that she is dead?"

"Let go," Skrch said. "I owe it to her."

The Elf released her. Skrch leaned forward and made a neat cut. Blood welled around her talons. The body was still very warm, the muscles not yet cooled from the tremendous effort it had taken to force wings made for soaring into a sharp climb. Skrch tried not to think about livers as she dug the heart out of Vinnr's chest. It throbbed once as she tore it free, still trying to live. She set it carefully on the ground beside Vinnr's head. The young harpy's face looked puzzled, brows knit like she'd never quite figured it out.

"So long, Vinnr," Skrch said. She wiped her claws on the dead harpy's wing, then leaped into the air. It was a moment before she realized Eyrilus was not following. She turned back.

The Elf stood beside the dead queen, staring down at the body. Skrch watched as he leaned forward and closed the harpy's eyes. Then he turned and started to walk back toward the Orcs and the Human. He did not turn back into a crow. When Skrch's shadow passed over him, he did not look up.

Skrch turned to fly slowly back toward her children.

_And here I was thinking I'd won. Stupid, stupid Skrch._


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Never try to flog a dead horse. It wastes your time and annoys the dead horse.

Lord Darkhallow discovered the truth of this axiom a few miles out of Ratchet. He struck his skeletal steed on the shoulder in an attempt to urge it to greater speed. He used the flat of Whitecleaver. The horse was armored, so it wasn't as if he could do it any harm.

A half second later he found himself staring up at the blue sky and seriously rethinking this belief.

"Lord Darkhallow? Are you all right?" Gen'dirhil's face came into view above him, eyes shadowed by the cow skull on his head. Darkhallow swung his arm, knocking the necromancer several feet backwards. The ten ghouls, who had been creeping slowly forward, stopped. The smallest one cringed guiltily.

"I'm not dead, you filthy curs," Darkhallow said as he sat up. "And neither is Gen'dirhil, so _do not _tear him open. Yet. What happened?"

The horse stood where it had stopped, tossing its inexplicably curly-horned head.

"Hur hur," said one of the six abominations. "Bad horse."

Darkhallow snarled wordlessly as he rolled to his feet. He'd retained his grip on the sword. He almost always did, even on those increasingly rare occasions when he slept. The horse stared at him with empty sockets as he reached for its bridle. Then it sidestepped and tried to kick him in the knee. He blocked its bony hoof with the flat of the runeblade, then smote the side of its skull with his gauntleted fist.

"Stand still, curse you," he said.

The horse rocked slightly, but did not appear about to move again. Darkhallow swung into the saddle without incident.

"Gen'dirhil," he said. "Tell me why that happened. Quickly."

"I think it does not like the heat, Milord," the necromancer ventured, standing up cautiously. "It is accustomed to Northrend."

"It is dead. It should not be able to suffer discomfort," Darkhallow said.

"Er. No, Milord. But we have occasionally found that even the more primitive Undead creatures may develop… Well… Preferences," Gen'dirhil said. "Normally we simply destroy them when it becomes inconvenient."

"And if I wished to go on foot for the next hundred miles, that might be a viable answer," Darkhallow said coldly. "At the moment, you are still indispensable. I suggest you make a more serious effort to stay that way. Bring me one of the slaves. "

The runeblade hissed. Mana coiled up the blade and hit Darkhallow's hand like an electric shock. Everything in front of him shaded into dim green as the ghouls dragged a Human man forward.

"Unmanacle him," Darkhallow said. "Let's see how fast he can run."

---

Blackstare rode silently, sweating in the heat, and tried to figure out what had gone wrong. Skrch, normally loquacious, had said nothing in hours and seemed to be deliberately flying up out of earshot. The krrrahk, normally as sensitive as bricks, were unusually quiet as well.

And the Elf Eyrilus walked beside Shel'yin, and said nothing. It seemed strange to see him walking around in druid form. Blackstare had been getting used to him as a crow, and the reminder that she'd spent the night inside the same burrow as a man-Elf was uncomfortable. _If Redback ever hears about it, I'll never live it down._

_It's got something to do with that harpy she killed, _Dev thought. _But what? Druids aren't squeamish, or we'd never have had to fight them to begin with._

The necromancer and _her _harpy didn't seem bothered, but then, they never did. _Must be an Undead thing._

"Aw, forget this," Dev said aloud. "Hey, druid. You speak Orcish, yeah?"

"Yes," the Elf said.

"So what did you say to Skrch?"

"I said nothing," Eyrilus said, in a tone clearly intended to depress further conversation.

"Un huh," Dev said. "Try and not say any more 'nothing' 'til we get to the Undead camp, okay? She's had a bad enough couple of days as it is. Or did you forget about her two dead daughters?"

She couldn't see the Elf's face, because he was walking in front of her, but she saw the line of his shoulders tense up under his cape.

"She is cursed," Eyrilus said. "Like all of them. Death has no meaning for her because she does not respect life."

Daysleeper stopped without Dev even having to nudge him.

"Druid," Dev said. "Turn around."

Lrfk whispered something to Felwyn. The necromancer moved quietly to one side as Eyrilus turned. Shel'yin turned as well, frowning.

Dev slid off the wolf's back and walked forward. She stopped when she and the druid were nose to nose. He was marginally taller, and much broader in the shoulders. His eyes were purple and narrow in his pointed face.

"Resume your mount, warrior," Shel'yin said.

"I don't know where you came from," Dev said, ignoring him. "I don't know why you're here. But I do know Skrch saved my life _and she saved yours, _and you seem to have forgot it pretty bloody fast. So if I ever hear you say something like that again, one of us is going to die. You understand?"

"I understand," Eyrilus said coldly.

"Dev Blackstare," Shel'yin said.

Dev turned around and went to get back on Daysleeper's back. The warlock Shel'yin came and stood beside them.

"That was completely inappropriate," he said. "Any personal disagreement you may have should be conducted in the correct time and place, and our current situation is far too sensitive for this type of quarreling. Restrain yourself."

All of the things Dev wanted to say were markedly _less _appropriate. Eventually she gritted her teeth and said, "Yes, Warlock."

---

"It's going to be a long day," Lrfk said in Common, shifting her feet on the staff.

"This will iron itself out," Felwyn Smallfinger said. She had almost mastered gliding through the tall grass. The occasional rock still gave trouble, but she was confident she would have it soon.

_With any luck, we will be attacked again, _Mir'noj said.

"What?" Lrfk said. "I don't _see _any attack coming. I'm usually fairly good with that."

_It would give us a discharge for the power, _Mir'noj said. _The two of you are acquiring new ways to use it. I can feel it._

"And why does that trouble you, Mir'noj?" Felwyn said.

_I am not sure it will not change you. I am concerned what will become of me if you no longer have need of me, _the shade of Mir'noj said. Felwyn turned to look back at him. The expression on his ghostly features suggested no guile. He had not been guileful in life, for that matter.

"Oh, I see," Felwyn said. "You are thinking that we could overthrow Lord Marrowice, create a new army of Undead, and conquer the entire Barrens. Perhaps start our own Scourge?"

_How did you know? _Mir'noj said. _I was not aware you had expanded to the point of reading my mind._

"No," Felwyn Smallfinger said, and smiled sadly. "It's what _you _would have wanted to do," she said. "Isn't it?"

_Yes._

She turned back to the front again, just in time to detour around another rock. They were far off the path now, taking the shortest route back to the Undead camp.

"I was never like that," Felwyn said. "Just because I'm half-dead now doesn't mean I'd betray Lord Marrowice. He saved me. My fate is bound to his. I will serve him as long as I can."

_Then as my fate is bound to you, I too will serve, _Mir'noj said.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

"I think the Huntress is coming," Lrfk said.

"Where?" said Felwyn Smallfinger.

"Here," said Viri Starwater. Felwyn turned to see her walking beside her on the right. Felwyn was sweating in the heat, but not Viri. Being dead had that much to say for it: you lost most of life's benefits, but you lost most of the inconveniences, too. Provided it was worth somebody's time to stop you from rotting, that was. It was one of the things Felwyn most admired about Phage Marrowice. He _did _think it was worth his time.

"Is the way clear?" Felwyn asked.

"So far," Viri said. "But we must travel faster. We are needed at the camp."

Felwyn looked at the Elf. She was staring into the East, arms tight around her shoulders. The cords of her neck stood out under her ashy violet skin.

"How do you know?"

"I see the dead," Viri said. "There are more Human bodies in the camp than there were when we left. Not Undead. Corpses."

"The acolytes?" Felwyn said.

"I cannot tell. I cannot sense the living," Viri said. "I would not have found the others, but Lord Marrowice is very near them. I can always find him."

"Then I am sure he needs us," Felwyn said. "Lrfk, could you try to explain to the others?"

The two Orcs were watching them, listening to what was still gibberish to them. Eyrilus looked at Felwyn with a frown.

"But what are you going to do?" Lrfk said.

"I'm not sure," Felwyn said. "Mir'noj, do you think we can…"

_I will help you as much as I can, but there will be a cost, _Mir'noj said

"It will be no good if we're useless when we get there," Felwyn said.

_You may be able to shield Lrfk. The spell you wish to perform is a Human magic, not a harpy one. And your traveling companions are formidable. You will not be without protection._ Lrfk, still chattering away at the Orcs, did not hear this part of the conversation.

"That's so," Felwyn said, and earned another strange look as Eyrilus watched her talking to the air."Lrfk, go up and tell your mother something for me."

---

Skrch glanced down just in time to see the circle of blue light begin to form in the air around the travelers.

"What's going on?" she said, and started to descend. Lrfk came shooting up like a rocket.

"Mother! Felwyn's going to take everyone to the camp. Something's going on and she thinks Lord Marrowice needs us. How fast can you get there?"

"In a few minutes, if we have to," Skrch said. "But what's - "

"Sorry," Lrfk said. "I have to help." She flipped her tail and dove back down again, skipping back and forth like a stone across a pond.

A second later the light became blinding. Skrch blinked, and when she looked again, everyone was gone. The trampled grass was already beginning to stand up again.

"All right, krrrahk," she said. "Now we're going to fly really fast."

"Finally!" said Ckkk.

---

Phage Marrowice did not have to be told of the necromancer's return. He felt the sizzle of dark mana even from inside the Temple of the Damned. He turned to see Ner'zirhud's beard nearly standing up, the ends crackling.

"Stay in here," he said.

"Yes, Milord," Ner'zirhud quavered, but Phage was already gone. He shot out the front door of the Temple just in time to see the circle of blue light vanish with a whirr. Dev Blackstare and an extremely tall Orc and Viri Starwater stood in the largest open area in the camp, between the buildings and the watch towers. Felwyn Smallfinger had fallen to one knee, and the staff dug into the ground as she gripped it tightly. Lrfk fluttered to the ground, a blue nimbus glowing around her wings as Phage glided forward.

"Necromancer?" he said. "What's happened? Are you all right?"

"I hope so," Lrfk said, pressing herself against Felwyn's left side. The necromancer groped blindly, and the harpy slid Felwyn's arm over her tiny shoulders. "The Huntress said you needed us. This is the Orc Chieftain's emissary, Shel'yin."

The Orc Chieftain's emissary was busy kneeling next to Felwyn, reaching for her wrist with a very large hand.

"Mir'noj?" Felwyn said faintly. "Are you… Still… There?"

Shel'yin said something in Orcish and let go. He stood up.

"He says she's probably not going to die," Lrfk said. "I'm pretty sure she'll be fine once she's had some rest. We never tried anything that big before."

"I should think not," Phage said, forcibly reminding himself that he did not, technically, have a heart. The uncomfortable tight feeling behind his ribs must be entirely imaginary. "I am frankly not sure how you did it at all. Let's get her into the Temple and let Ner'zirhud have a look at her. Ask the emissary if he'd be willing to wait out here for a moment. Oh, and greet the warrior for me, will you?"

"There was no attack?" Viri Starwater said. The Orcish emissary listened patiently to Lrfk, shook his head once, and picked Felwyn up gently as he answered.

"He says he'll carry her," Lrfk said. "He says the warrior will be all right by herself."

"Thank him, Lrfk. And no, Huntress. Why did you think we'd been attacked?"

Phage turned to lead the little procession into the Temple of the Damned. (No one else seemed to notice Felwyn's staff hovering along behind them.) It was dim inside the single room, a couple of big smoking candles giving the only light.

"Hmm. The tables are all occupied, I'm afraid. Set her on the bench. Lrfk, do you mind clearing some of that off?" Phage turned his skull to and fro as he looked around the room, trying to decide where the elder necromancer was hiding.

"New corpses," Viri said. She stood staring down into the clouded eyes of the blond Human. The other two tables held Humans as well. A fire licked up around the base of the sand bath in the corner, and the sand was steaming hard, so Phage assumed the last two bodies were destined for ghoulhood.

"I can't imagine how you knew that from twenty miles away, but as it happens, yes," Phage said. "Dragon Kirv and Gray brought them from outside Crossroads early this morning. Ner'zirhud has been working in here all day, although he seems to have vanished now."

"Then I was wrong," Viri Starwater said flatly. She turned to look at Felwyn Smallfinger, now sitting on the edge of the bench with Lrfk standing next to her.

"It doesn't matter," Felwyn said. "We _do _need to be here. Mir'noj says there's still too much and we have things to do." She reached for the staff, which stood impossibly straight up beside her.

"Too much what, Necromancer?" Phage asked.

Felwyn held onto the bench with one hand and aimed the staff with the other. A blast of black unlight shot across the room and struck the blond corpse. Fingers of dark lightning crackled over the body.

"Uh oh," Lrfk said. She fell over. Felwyn slumped back against the wall, the staff clattering from her fingers. This time it lay still on the floor.

The Orcish warlock turned to look at Phage Marrowice. He raised one eyebrow.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Phage said.

---

Outside, Daysleeper shifted his feet and whined. Dev Blackstare watched with misgiving as a curious ghoul came up and sniffed at them.

"Where'd that druid go, anyway?" she said.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Many miles from Crossroads, the dead walked.

Well. The ghouls walked. The abominations' gait could be more accurately described as a lumber (or in some cases a stagger, since they had been made at extremely short notice). The banshees glided, tattered robes never quite brushing the ground. And, bringing up the rear, the clattering of the three meat wagons drowned out the metallic slide of Lord Darkhallow's single, precious obsidian statue.

The meat wagons occasionally lagged, forcing Lord Darkhallow to slow the column's pace. The spirits propelling the infernal constructions were animal, unsusceptible to verbal threats and not at all vulnerable to discomfort in their current form.

Besides, they were heavily laden, and every corpse in a wagon represented another addition to Lord Darkhallow's army. He did not trouble to imagine just how so many bodies could fit inside a box smaller than a coffin. Magic was, in Lord Darkhallow's experience, both an adequate and a rational explanation for any number of things in which he was not remotely interested.

"Magic," Darkhallow muttered, then glared at Gen'dirhil as the necromancer seemed about to speak. The magician twitched and continued trudging along beside Darkhallow's horse. It had tried to throw the death knight again, but this time he had been prepared. Of course, it had meant another delay while Gen'dirhil reattached its front left leg. Darkhallow was in a bad mood, they were out of slaves, and consequently Whitecleaver kept trying to move on its own.

"Soon enough," he said to the runeblade. "We will be at the Crossroads tomorrow. Then we shall have blood and to spare."

---

Shel'yin watched suspiciously as the Lich dragged an old man with a beard out from behind the sand bath. He'd drawn up his mana as unobtrusively as possible, in case the Undeads decided the girl and the harpy were a complete loss. He didn't entirely trust Felwyn and Lrfk either, particularly not with the half-glimpsed shade that seemed to follow them everywhere, but he did not intend to see them rendered for parts.

The warlock did not particularly like Rokhyel Shadebreaker, but he had grudgingly come to trust the old knight. These new dead were another thing entirely. _I see no possibility of peace with those who were once with the Scourge and who very well may still be. Demons know, I objected strenuously enough at the time._ He had a sneaking suspicion that the whole thing was some kind of joke on his Chieftain's part, except that the situation seemed far too serious for that.

_The fact that this Lich could almost certainly kill me before I get to him, for example, _Shel'yin thought gloomily. He sensed the sour tang of death mana in the air around the Lich, and it was stronger than ever in the crowded Temple. (Or maybe that was the smell. There _were _three dead Humans in the room.) Shel'yin could produce a fairly impressive fireball at close range. The trouble was that he knew enough about liches to know that a single frost nova could probably obliterate it easily.

_And it is doubtful whether I could move as fast as the Elf. Between the two of them I would be dead within seconds, _he concluded.Shel'yin had been big his whole life, even for an Orc. He had also lived with the warlock Nel'hesh for most of that time. One did not, under those circumstances, maintain the illusion that size by itself was an important quality.

The necromancer was approaching, jabbering something nervous in the Common tongue. Shel'yin, listening hard, thought he heard the word _help._

"I do not understand you," he said.

"He says he must examine them," Viri Starwater said.

Shel'yin edged to one side and watched as the necromancer held a finger under Felwyn's lips, then Lrfk's. The man straightened the deer skull on his head as he turned to speak to the Lich.

Shel'yin squinted at the spirit, who now stood beside the unconscious Human. The dead man was, if possible, harder to see than before, but he seemed to be trying to shake Felwyn's shoulder. He was not succeeding, since his fingers were still incorporeal.

"Is this your doing?" Shel'yin said.

---

"Who is he talking to?" Phage said.

Viri Starwater cocked her head. "The spirit," she said.

"One of the shades is in here?"

"No," Viri said. "I cannot see it with my eyes, but I do not think it is a shade. I can always detect them, and I have not been able to…" She narrowed her eyes. Phage received the impression that she was struggling to find a word that she had known once, but lost. "…_Find_ this one until the last two days," Viri said finally.

"Hand me Felwyn's staff, Ner'zirhud," Phage said, the germ of an idea beginning to take shape.

"Certainly, My L – _Eeep!_" The necromancer twitched and dropped the length of wood. A string of black lightning crackled over the handle and vanished. "Milord, I do not think it wishes to be touched," Ner'zirhud said.

"Oh, nonsense." The old man scuttled back behind a tabled body as Phage glided forward. He bent over, a difficult maneuver to achieve without tipping himself out of the air, and seized the staff. A faint charge leaped from the shaft to his arm. Felwyn, still slumped over on the bench, twitched.

"Pain can do nothing to one of _us_," Phage said "Try living in agony for five years and see how much a little electricity does to you. You should know that by now, Mir'noj. Viri, ask the Orcish emissary what the spirit is doing."

Viri asked a question in unusually flat Orcish. Shel'yin answered without taking his eyes from a point in the air beside Felwyn.

"He seems to be trying to hide behind the bench," Viri said.

"Yes, that's Mir'noj," Phage said. He laid the skeletal fingers of one hand over the skull atop the staff, hooking his fingers into its sockets. "I wonder what tethers him to this world. What do you think will happen if I crush the last remnants of your body, Mir'noj?"

He tightened his finger bones slowly. A second before the skull would have cracked, a voice said,

"No, Milord! I will speak!"

It was not unfamiliar. A little more haggard than Phage remembered, perhaps. _Being dead will do that to a person._

"I thought so," Phage Marrowice said. "The shades can make the living hear them. What have you done, Mir'noj?"

"Nothing!" said the voice. "Felwyn took me in, and in return I have given her what little aid I can in this form. Since Lrfk came, everything has changed. The two magics feed on one another, and grow. The power is great, but it is not stable."

"What do you mean by," Phage started, then broke off at the low moan from behind him. Shel'yin's head turned sharply at the sound. Phage turned to look, thinking, _Now what?_

Viri Starwater crouched with one hand on the floor and a glaive in the other. Her cape was gone, revealing the straps and bits of hide that served her for clothing. Phage noticed, for the first time, that she seemed to have made herself a multi-paneled skirt very like his kilt.

The blond Human was trying to sit up on the table, but he kept falling back. He groaned again, clutching at his left shoulder. His left hand had a convulsive grip on Viri's cape, now dangling from his fist like a dead bat.

"Ner'zirhud," Phage said distantly. "How long does it take you to resurrect a Human, normally?"

"A skeleton can be raised in an instant," Ner'zirhud said.

"That is not a skeleton, Ner'zirhud," Phage said.

"No, Milord. I was not finished with the preparations. I spent hours just putting his spine back together, and then I had to set up the wards of preservation, and then… Well…" The necromancer clicked his yellow teeth together. "Normally, if one were not concerned with decay, it could be done in perhaps two or three hours. For particular work of the type you desired, I would expect it to take an entire day. Perhaps more. Each. I am just a humble practitioner, of course, not a great - "

"Yes, thank you," Phage said, waving him off. "Viri, relax. I don't think he'll try to harm anyone. It will no doubt be some hours before he can perceive anything but pain."

"Yes, Lord," Viri Starwater said, rising gracefully to her feet. She hung the glaive back on her belt. "I remember."

"I see what you meant, Mir'noj," Phage Marrowice said. "My question is whether Felwyn will survive this. And you understand that I am not speaking in a purely physical sense."

"I wish I knew," Mir'noj said.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

"Here we are," Skrch said. The Undead camp lay up ahead, its towers glowing faintly under the cliff's shadow. "Don't go picking at _anything _while we're here, okay? You never know if it's going to turn out to not actually be dead."

"I'm hungry," Ckkk said.

"No, you're not, we just ate an entire zhevra. I don't know how you can even fly. Just stay close, all right? Oh, hello there," she said, as an enormous red dragon turned and flew over to investigate them. Purple eyes inspected them narrowly.

"Hey, there's a skeleton riding it," Knnr said. "Neat."

"I'm Skrch," Skrch said.

"Krrrrr," the skeleton said. The dragon snorted in the politest manner possible, by way of indicating that they were in the way and it would like to go on with its patrol.

"Sure," Skrch said. "Move, krrrahk."

The little flock divided around the great sweeping wings. Skrch circled down toward the camp, frowning. It seemed quiet. Abominations patrolled, eerie little blue lights circled the palm trees, and ghouls padding back and forth doing whatever it was ghouls did. Then she took a close look at the Temple of the Damned. Something blue-black steamed off its makeshift walls, too bright for smoke and too dark for light. Dev Blackstare stood beside her wolf, staring at the entrance. Daysleeper's hackles had risen, making him look larger than he was.

"What's going on, Dev?" Skrch said. She juddered to a rapid stop a couple of yards off, surrounded by her offspring. They did not land quite as easily, and there were numerous cries of "Hey, quit pushing!"

"Did everyone make it here?" Skrch said.

"Yeah," Dev said. "I don't know where that druid went, though."

"I don't think he'll be back," Skrch said. _And I can't think about it right now. I have my girls to worry about. _"What's going on?"

"It took a lot out of the girl, getting us here," Dev said. "They took her in there. Nobody's come out yet." The Orc fingered the pommel of her scimitar. "It's weird. I keep hearing somebody making noise, but it sounds…"

Skrch turned to look at the dark doorway as a low moan issued from the inside. _It sounds like a man._

"Is Lrfk all right?" she said.

"I'll go see!" Vrawk said.

"No, you will _not,_" Skrch said. "Ckkk, you get away from that doorway _right now._ There are already way too many people in there and it doesn't look that big." _The fact that there's black steam coming off the walls probably doesn't bother them in the slightest._

"I think she's all right," Dev said. "They were both talking when they went in."

Shel'yin came out of the Temple carrying Felwyn and Lrfk, one in each arm. Skrch was startled at how much bigger he seemed, now that she was standing on the ground. He had to be at least a foot taller than Skrch. She noticed that in passing, but the word "Lrfk?" was already on its way past her lips.

"It is possible they will be all right," Shel'yin said. "I am taking them to the gold mine. They should not be left inside the temple with the Human."

"What Human?" Skrch said, hopping to keep up with his long strides. "Not Lord Marrowice?"

"No," Shel'yin said. "He is behind us."

Skrch glanced back. The Lich had come out of the Temple and was following them, gliding quickly over the ground. He held Felwyn's staff in one hand. His skull could not, of course, show any expression, but his _posture _was upset. Black steam trailed behind him in the air.

"What happened?" Skrch said.

"I am not sure, beyond that the discharge of power seems to have exhausted them," Shel'yin said.

Skrch hopped again, trying to get a look at her daughter's face. Lrfk's head was resting against the Orc's chest.

"Littlest?" Skrch said in Saark. There was no answer. Skrch looked around for the others. They were edging toward the doorway of the Temple. "Girls! You _stay out_ of there!" she said, and then Shel'yin disappeared into the low doorway of the mine. Skrch turned and ran after him as best she could. It's hard to run on harpy talons.

---

Many miles to the West, a Troll was finding out that at least part of his information regarding gray Orcs was wrong. He was materially assisted in this by the fact that one such gray Orc was holding him upside down by his ankles.

"Raiders caught him hiding in the grass," Lev Darksun said, surveying the captive as Gibad Fallsharder dangled him in front of the Chieftain. "He was carrying this."

Veren Redmorning waited while Darksun fished out a tube made of polished wood and held it up. "'S got glass in both ends, Chieftain," Lev said.

"Give it here," Redmorning said. He held out his hand, ignoring Kev'ran's sharp look.

"We don't know what it's for," Darksun said. "Could be magicked or something. Probably better if you don't touch it."

"I agree," Kev'ran said. Redmorning did not bother to look at Loudwhisper. He almost never disagreed with Kev'ran. _It's amazing to think we didn't even _have _female warlocks until this year._

"'Sjusfa lukin thru," the Troll said sullenly. Lev rolled his eyes.

"Fallsharder," he said. Gibad Fallsharder let go for a second, let the Troll fall a couple of inches, and caught him. Given that the captive was actually taller than Fallsharder, this meant he hit his head on the ground before Fallsharder hoisted him up again.

"Ow! Wadja dooda' fo?" the Troll said indignantly, rubbing his head as best he could upside down. His crest of white hair was flattened, but as Redmorning watched it started to spring back into shape. He brushed a dirt clod off one protruding tusk.

"Speak Orcish or shut up," Darksun said.

"Bi' stupeed Oak, yu moma wussa…"

"Actually," Redmorning said as the Troll went on muttering. "I think he _is _speaking Orcish."

"You're kidding," Lev said.

"Let him stand up, Gibad," Redmorning said. "You already took all his weapons, right?"

"Yeah," Darksun said reluctantly. "Not much place to hide any. Beats me how he keeps from dying of sunstroke, running around out here."

Gibad Fallsharder lowered the Troll to the ground and stepped quickly back. Redmorning watched as the lanky creature unfolded upwards. Lev's question seemed reasonable, given that the Troll wore nothing but a loincloth and weapon harnesses. _He ought to soak up heat like nothing else, _Redmorning thought_. Especially being dark blue like he is._

"'I frum da Eyels," the Troll said, sneering. The tusks added materially to this expression. "Yu tinkit ot _hea?_"

"Why were you watching us?" Redmorning said.

The troll folding his long arms. "Dat I canno' telya."

"Hey, wait," Lev said. "I think I got that." He frowned. "What do you mean, my mother was a…"

"There aren't many wild Trolls running around out here," Redmorning said. "And the ones from Ashenvale don't generally travel alone. And they black their harnesses with soot, and yours has been dyed. I'll bet Nez could tell me how."

"And they're riveted with steel," Darksun said. "Ashenvale Trolls don't know how to do that, either."

"I imagine it is safe to assume he is with the Horde, Chieftain," Kev'ran said.

"Yes," Redmorning said. "I think it probably is. What's your name?"

"Don' tink I telya dat eeder," the Troll said.

"Him not a very cooperative Troll," said a voice from behind Redmorning, on top of the Great Hall. Redmorning did not bother to turn around.

"Glaive…"

"Sorry, Chieftain." A second later the Elf somersaulted into view. She landed neatly on her feet, cape swirling around her, and leaned back to look up at the tall Troll. "You want I talk to big mean Troll for you? Got new knife I want to try out while Shadebreaker's not looking."

"Nyt Efs, na? Werda 'ell _yu_ com frum?" the Troll said. Staring down from six and a half feet of skinny height, he did not seem intimidated. But then, he hadn't seen what usually happened to creatures Glaive looked at in that particular speculative way.

"No," Redmorning said. "There will _not _be anything involving knives."

"Awww," Glaive said. She spun a belt knife on the end of her finger. It glittered in the afternoon sunlight.

"Where'd you learn a word like 'cooperative,' anyhow?" Darksun said.

"Dead man speaks good Orcish," Glaive said. "And I am fast learner. Well. At some stuff."

"War Chief Thrall knows we're here," Redmorning said, ignoring the byplay. "Otherwise, there's no reason to send a spy out here in the middle of nowhere. He can find out our troop strength easily using wyverns…"

"Or magic," Kev'ran said. "Some of the green Orcs are farseers."

"Right. So why send a Troll, particularly if they think as little of us as the Night Elves did? Is he that careless of his own people?"

"Dat no wayda tok," the Troll said at once. "Wa Chif no tha' kinda Oak."

"He seems to inspire loyalty in his warriors, at least." Veren Redmorning looked up at the Troll, thinking. _Even the ones who are not his own race. Not that it would matter how loyal they are, if they decide we're a threat. They're a nation. We're one little clan. We'd be obliterated._

"An Orc of principle," Redmorning said quietly. "So before you completely wipe out an entire village, you want to make sure you're killing the right people. Right? So you send one warrior, all alone, obviously a spy, and see what happens to him when he is captured."

"That seems pretty bloody cold," Lev Darksun said. "Unless… How old are you?" Lev said suddenly, turning to look up at the Troll.

"Twenny," the Troll said.

Gibad Fallsharder snorted. Darksun grinned unexpectedly. "Gotcha," he said. "Hey, Chieftain. I think what we have got here is a _volunteer_."

"Yu tink dat funny?" the Troll said. His eyes were tiny pale slits in his dark face. "Jus' yu gimme bac mai nayf, see wot appen den."

"Easy, warrior," Darksun said. "The reason it's funny is 'cause I'd have done exactly the same thing when _I_ was twenty. Demons, it's been a long time since I was that dumb."

"Not prove it by me," Glaive said.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Skrch stood on the pinnacle of the necropolis, rocking from talon to talon. Most of her krrrahk were busy chasing birds. This game probably would not last long, given that only an unusually stupid bird would wander too close to this camp to start with. Knnr seemed to have made friends with some of the ghouls and was now playing what looked like an odd game of tag, running about on the ground.

Felwyn and Lrfk still slept, and the warlock Shel'yin had given it as his considered opinion that they would probably sleep for some time. Provided they didn't die, of course. He hadn't actually _said _that last part, but Skrch was getting better and better at reading Orcs. Skrch tried hard not to worry about this. After all, he was gloomy even for a warlock.

Now Shel'yin sat on a wrought iron chair outside the gold mine, speaking with Phage Marrowice. The Lich showed no inclination to sit – for that matter, it might not be possible – but he was hovering as close as possible to a third chair. Viri Starwater seemed to be translating from a position standing rigid behind the Lich's seat, and Dev perforce stood behind the warlock's chair.

Skrch was glad to be free from translating for a few minutes. She needed to think.

_Why did Eyrilus leave?_ was the first question she asked herself. _Why did he suddenly get all offended over that other queen when he didn't bat an eye at Serrw tearing off the back of a centaur's head?_

The next question was, _Why didn't he want the Orcs to see him? He kept out of the way whenever they were anywhere close, except for Dev. _

And the last, and perhaps the most disturbing: _Did the other Elves _really _throw him out? Or do they just want to keep a _really close _eye on the gray Orcs? _"Scrrr," Skrch swore quietly, shifting her feet again. "And I was starting to _like _him. I was _that _close to asking if he wanted to… Oh, _scrrr. _That's enough _thinking_." She snapped open her wings and glided down, keeping a careful eye out for the dragon. Steam was still rising off the Temple of the Damned, but it was white now. Skrch landed in front of the door. The sounds from inside seemed to have died down since the necromancer came out and went back in.

Her little Lrfk had helped bring somebody back from the dead. It was a strange thought, even knowing how different Lrfk was from her other daughters. _She's more now than she was before. They both are._

Skrch glanced around. The game of tag was still going on. She edged into the shadow of the doorway, squinting. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust, and then...

"Why is he tied down?" Skrch said. She could mostly ignore the smell. Harpies get good at that very early in life. The dry fizz of death mana was harder to ignore.

Ner'zirhud, standing beside the table with the new Undead, almost dropped the candle he was holding.

"What? Oh, it's you, Madam. I'm sorry? What was your question again?"

"Why is he tied to the table?" Skrch said. She folded her wings behind her and sidled closer. Ropes bound the dead Human at the level of shoulders and knees, and his wrists were tied together on top of his body. The man did not breathe, though he seemed to be shaking. He had turned his face to the wall.

"Viri had to take one of my skinning knives away from him after he stabbed himself with it," the necromancer said. "He moved surprisingly quickly for one so new, I can tell you _that. _I've only just finished stitching up the hole again. Fortunately, the dead bleed very slowly." Ner'zirhud waved a pair of tiny scissors demonstratively as he went back to his bench.

"He tried to kill himself?" Skrch said. She moved closer. The Human's hair was blond, and long, and somewhat dirty. _At least he doesn't smell. It must be the others._

"Yes, I think it's rather a promising sign," Ner'zirhud said.

"How's that again?" Skrch said.

Ner'zirhud rummaged on the bench and came up with a glass tube that Skrch could not identify. He turned to go over to the sand bath, skirting the other corpses on tables.

"Well, he was found outside the Crossroads, and when he arrived he wore a knight's armor of very particular design. I had to take it off to get at his spinal injuries. What a mess... Ahem. I'm fairly sure that he came from the Theramore Isles."

"So?" Skrch said. She had some concept that there were islands, somewhere – that was where Trolls came from, wasn't it? – but the word _Theramore _meant nothing to her.

"At his age, he probably remembers the first Scourge," Ner'zirhud said. He stuck the end of the glass tube into the sand bath and watched the other end critically. "For him, this is a fate worse than death. You should pardon the expression, haha." It was a sad little laugh, having more to do with nerves than with any sort of humor. "So it's obvious that he's already conscious enough to realize, however dimly, what's happened to him. That is doing very well for having been Undead for only an hour or so. Particularly considering that he must still be in a great deal of pain. Not that it ever goes away, from what Lord Marrowice tells me, but it will be less. A reanimated brain which retains a large degree of upper mentation keeps trying to reject its own unnatural state and still continue. Since those things are mutually exclusive, a great deal of discomfort tends to result."

Skrch sorted through all the words she didn't know and came up, more or less, with understanding.

"You mean he tried to kill himself because you brought him back from the dead into his own personal Hell?" Skrch said.

"Er. Well, yes," Ner'zirhud said. He removed the glass thing from the sand and shook it off, then went back to the bench. "I'm hoping that his desire to continue will override his urge toward self-destruction. It was almost instantaneous with Huntress Starwater, but then, she had been alive a very long time. I understand it is a difficult habit to break."

The Human turned his head. Skrch looked into his eyes. They were completely black, and steam was rising from them. He opened his cracked lips. A sound came out. It was not a Human sound.

"Maybe I can help," Skrch said. "I can heal."

"I doubt it will make any difference," the necromancer said. "His pain largely does not result from his physical injuries. It is why Undead so seldom pay attention to discomfort of that nature."

_And _Lrfk _wants to be one of these some day?_ Skrch thought, but did not say. She wound up mana, creating a faint crackle around her as it bounced off the death magic in the air. She moved away from Ner'zirhud, then clapped her wing talons over her head. A helix of yellow light coiled up around the Human.

The new Undead twitched. Ner'zirhud came and leaned over the body as the light faded. He reached out to brush off the trailing threads from the patch of bare chest over the man's heart. The skin was very pale.

"Hmm. Well, the stitches are gone."

The Human jerked suddenly. Ner'zirhud jumped back with a squeak. Skrch stayed where she was, watching as the man strained at his bonds. He was completely silent now, though Skrch thought she could hear his teeth grinding. The wooden table creaked.

"Sorry," she said to the Human. It didn't seem like enough, but there was nothing else to say. She turned toward the door. "I wouldn't bet on those ropes holding him much longer, Mister Necromancer."

"Oh, dear," Ner'zirhud said weakly. "I suppose I will have to see if the Acolytes can summon any chains."

"I'd hurry," said Skrch.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Notwithstanding the normal daily business of eating and being eaten that goes on wherever a state of nature prevails, the next day was a busy one in the Barrens.

Veren Redmorning made sure the Troll prisoner had plenty of food and water, gave him back his weapons, and sent him politely but firmly out the village's front gate. The Troll stared at the watch towers for a few minutes, waiting for any last ironic arrows, then turned and started his long walk toward Orgrimmar.

A party of Human adventurers from the Keep met a party of Orcs from Orgrimmar going the other way. It was unusually hot, and both were hung over. The result was, not surprisingly, yet another battle outside the gates of Crossroads. The difference was that this time a pack of Undeads came down over a small rise like wolves on the fold, neatly pincered off an isolated section of the conflict, and slaughtered everyone in it. They had gathered up the bodies and were gone before everyone else realized what had happened, though one or two who watched from the walls blanched at the sight of a death knight so far from home.

One other creature saw the fight start, and recognized Lord Darkhallow. The single shade had instructions to watch Crossroads and report back at once in the event of another battle. He sped toward Lord Marrowice's camp all the faster with the knowledge of what would happen if the dark warrior gained even the slightest idea that he was there.

In the camp itself, Ner'zirhud spent the morning making sure the chains on the remaining Human corpses were secure. Lord Marrowice would want them up and about again as soon as possible, and besides, the temple would smell considerably better once they were out of it.

As for the new man, he grew calmer over the course of the night. In the early morning Ner'zirhud unchained him, and Viri Starwater saw him out of the Temple and out of reach of the skinning knives. Skrch, who had spent the night roosting on top of the building next to the steam vent, woke suddenly at the sound of voices.

"There, see?" said Ner'zirhud's voice. "You can walk just fine. (Walking's not going to be the problem, in any case.) You'll be better in no time." The tone of voice in which he said _better _suggested a certain amount of guilt. _Poor Human, _Skrch thought.

"Do not attempt to destroy yourself," said the Huntress's cold voice. "Lord Marrowice has need of you, and I will be watching."

"Wake up, krrrahk," Skrch said in Saark. "Time to get up."

"Don't wanna," muttered Serrw's voice. The others echoed this sentiment in muzzy voices.

"Okay, girls, you asked for it."

Skrch unfolded her wings suddenly, bowling fledglings in every direction. A second later she was at the bottom of a pile of playfully irate little harpies, giggling and poking with their wing talons.

"Oh, go on with you," Skrch said, laughing as she shook them off one by one. "Go have a wash. Your breath is awful."

"Serrw is a stink-head!" Trrilik announced, and sped off toward the stream with her older sister giving chase. The others followed, quarreling in a desultory manner. Skrch sidled over the front of the temple and looked down.

The new Undead stood alone in front of the Temple. A ghoul paused to sniff at his dangling fingers, but he ignored it. Now that he was standing up, it was evident that Ner'zirhud's work had not been perfect. Even from above, Skrch saw that he stood with one shoulder higher than the other, his upper body canted to one side. His clothing was ragged, his tunic barely holding together over the wreck of what had once been a finely built man. Ropy scars showed all up and down his back, tracing the meandering course of his spine.

Skrch hopped off the roof, since it was really too close to the ground to glide. The Human twitched, and was suddenly three feet further away.

"Hey," Skrch said. "You're almost as fast as the Huntress. That's doing _really _good for somebody big as you."

Dull black eyes regarded her. Steam still rose from them.

"I'm Skrch," Skrch said. "I'm here with the gray Orcs. They're trying to start a treaty with Lord Marrowice. But then, somebody probably told you that already, right?"

"No," the Human said. His voice was tired, but quite clear. "They said do what Lord Marrowice says, and don't try and die again, because it's not permitted."

"I'm strict about that, too," Skrch said sympathetically. "What's your name?"

An apparent internal struggle followed. The Human's pale eyebrows knit as he thought. "Caden," he said finally.

"Don't Humans usually have more than one name? Or is that just Orcs?"

The dead man shrugged, looking bitterly down at his new self. "Caden the Crooked."

"Well, Caden the Crooked, you ought to have a wash," Skrch said. "You'll feel better when you're all clean. Come on. I promise not to look."

"Who'd want to?" said Caden the Crooked. But he still followed Skrch as she turned toward the stream.

---

Shel'yin was pleasantly surprised, over the course of the morning, to find that Phage Marrowice confirmed few of his worst fears. Unless liches were possessed of much greater acting skill than his old master Nel'hesh had ever told him, Lord Marrowice was not one of the icy intelligences which made the Scourge so fearful. He was fussy, uncommonly insecure, and paternally worried for all the Undead in his charge.

"I'm afraid I haven't been able to make them stop calling me 'Lord,'" Phage was saying now, as they moved toward the gold mine. "Some of them need a central focus to prevent dissolution, and some feel better having a clear-cut hierarchy. This is particularly true out here, so far from any other structure. Structure is very necessary to us, you understand."

Viri Starwater, slinking along beside Phage, rendered this word by word.

"You could have left them," Shel'yin said. "Struck out on your own. Many… Men… would have done so."

Phage replied instantly. Viri rendered his response blankly, but Shel'yin thought he saw some skepticism as she said, "He says that considering things from a purely selfish perspective, he would not survive."

"I see," Shel'yin said.

Phage spoke again.

"In any case, that would be very," the Huntress translated, then stopped. It was not the first time Shel'yin had seen her hesitate over a word with emotional connotations. Fortunately, he thought he recognized the word Phage had used.

"Lonely?" Shel'yin said.

"Yes," Viri said.

"Can liches _be _lonely?" Shel'yin said.

Viri spoke to Phage again. The answer came back as,

"I do not know that the others can. Undead tend to be less complicated than the living. Most of the things we do can be traced back to one central drive, though what that drive is differs. This is why we need structure, you understand?"

"I believe so," Shel'yin said.

It was odd to think that an Undead might be driven by the overriding emotion of pained solicitude, but that seemed very apt in Lord Marrowice's case. Certainly it would explain why such a nonthreatening individual would do something as drastic as threaten to crush Mir'noj's skull. _He thought Mir'noj was threatening one of his subjects._

This further explained Phage's eagerness to form ties with the Tattered Banner. _He wishes to improve their situation and their safety. In essence, the same thing we wish to do. This is a very unusual Lich._

---

Dev Blackstare had slept very little that night, curled up next to Daysleeper outside a ziggurat while Shel'yin slept inside it. The warlock didn't seem to like her very much. As far as Dev was concerned, the feeling was mutual. No Orc ought to be that chilly. _No wonder he gets along so bloody well with the Undead. Lord Marrowice is a fuzzy wyvern cub compared to Shel'yin, _she thought as she plaited her hair.

She had been awakened by the warlock's voice early in the morning, informed that she would not be needed that day, and sternly instructed to stay out of trouble. Dev said, "Yes, Warlock," clamped her hand around Daysleeper's muzzle before the wolf could make a noise, and then set about her morning routine.

_And how the bloody Twisting Nether did he step right over me and not wake me up?_ she wondered. _Nobody that big ought to walk that quiet._

Dev tied a thong around the end of her braid, loosened her scimitar in its sheath, and went down to the stream. She heard high little voices from a ways off, so it was no surprise when she found Skrch and her children already splashing about in the water.

The naked Human who was washing his hair was something else again.

"Hi, Dev," Skrch called, dunking one of her girls who was trying to trip her.

"Um. Hi," Blackstare said. The Human seemed to be ignoring her, but it was hard to tell while trying not to look at him.

"This is Caden the Crooked," Skrch said. "He's new. I guess they got him from Crossroads."

Dev risked a look. He wasn't _completely _naked. The loincloth was almost the same color as his white skin, so it had been an easy mistake to make.

"I'm Dev Blackstare," she said. "I'm with the Tattered Banner."

"She came with the warlock," Skrch said. The Human straightened up and turned to look at the Orc, wringing water from his hair. Well. He more or less straightened up. _Caden the Crooked. Ah hah, _Dev thought.

"His eyes are different from the Huntress's," Dev said.

"He wasn't brought back the same way," Skrch said. "Felwyn and Lrfk raised him sort of suddenly, I guess. Ner'zirhud is still busy trying to get the other two up the long way."

"I see," Dev said, and went down to wash her face. From the corner of her eye, she saw the dead man watching.

"Gray," he said after a while. His voice might be taken for Human, in much the same way Viri's might be taken for Elven. It was a little more ragged and a little less cold.

"Yeah," Dev said. "We came from Draenor a few months ago. We were red when we got here." She splashed water on her hair, smoothing it down. The Human was frowning. One hand strayed toward his higher shoulder, rubbing the bunched muscle there. Blackstare straightened up slowly. She would hate to startle Viri Starwater, and she _definitely _didn't want to startle a brand new Undead.

"You came from Crossroads?" she said.

"Yes," the man said.

"What'd you die of?"

"Might not ought to ask him that, Dev," Skrch said. "He's had a really bad couple of days."

"Sure," Blackstare said. "Sorry."

"I never saw it," Caden said. "He was behind me." He lowered his hand. It hung a little lower than the other one. "Think it was a mace."

"That'd fit," Dev said. _An axe would've cut you in half, not just pulped your back and spine. _"Chances pretty good it was an Orc?"

"Yes," Caden said.

"That going to be a problem for you ?" Blackstare said carefully.

"It doesn't matter how it happened," Caden said. "It can't be undone."

"Most things can't," said Dev Blackstare.


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

"Hey, I found a fish,"Trrillik said.

"Oooh, it's shiny."Vrawk edged toward the silvery creature which was now flopping on the bank.

"You can't have it, it's _mine._"

"There's lots more over here," Knnr interjected, in what was for her a very conciliatory tone.

Skrch sunned herself on top of a ziggurat, wings spread in the morning sun. She tried to keep an eye on her daughters, on Caden, and on the conversation Lord Marrowice now seemed to be having with no one at all. More interesting was the fact that the warlock Shel'yin seemed to be talking to the same patch of empty air.

"Can you see anybody there, Dev?" Skrch said.

Blackstare turned to look.

"Nope. Probably one of those invisible things," Blackstare said. She dried her hands idly on her trousers. She had a new pair now, without the telltale blood stains she had earned at her first meeting with Skrch.

"A shade," Skrch said. "Sure. But it's weird for one to interrupt them talking. Undead are _strict _about that." She used the new word proudly. She'd heard it from Shel'yin yesterday. If Caden the Crooked understood any of the Orcish, he showed no sign. He stood on the bank now, watching the krrrahk with no expression on his face.

Dev was watching the warlock.

"Oh, demons," she said.

"What?" Skrch said.

Dev fingered her sword hilt. "I don't know the warlock that well – never wanted to - but the whole clan knows he never looks that smug unless we're in a _lot _of trouble."

---

The door to the gold mine was dark. This did not matter to Mir'noj, who would have been invisible in broad daylight, but old habits died hard. _So to speak. _He listened as the shade gave its hurried report, supernatural ears picking up what natural ones might miss.

"You are certain of this?" Lord Marrowice said.

"I could not be mistaken, Lord," the shade said. "I have seen Lord Darkhallow before."

"So have I," the Lich sighed. "Nor am I likely to forget it. How many did you say were with him?"

"Thirty, at least," the shade said. "With the meat wagons. The skeletons made it perhaps fifty, but some of them fell apart as I watched."

Mir'noj did not wait to hear more. He turned and glided quickly back into the mine, to the little alcove where the two cots stood side by side. Variel Slowburn lay on a pallet nearby, undisturbed by his silent presence.

_It is time you were waking,_ he said. Felwyn and Skrch showed no signs of stirring. The human and the harpy breathed, but both lay still and pale. Mir'noj felt the mana emanating from them even in their sleep. _It may not wake them soon enough, _he thoughtMir'noj had no illusions about what would happen to the camp – and them – and himself, if a death knight and thirty troops attacked now.

He tried shaking them, one at a time, but given his limitations in the area of corporeality this was not effective. Little sparks jumped to and through him when he touched them. It gave him an idea. Not an idea he particularly liked, but in dire straits...

_I would rather not do this,_ Mir'noj said, but the women still did not wake. He reached out one hand to Felwyn's shoulder and the other toward Lrfk, bridging the gap between them.

The power shot up his arms so fast that he never knew what hit him.

---

Felwyn sat up, blinking. _Ghouls and a necromancer and a pale man on a horse... _She had the feeling something important had just happened, but she had no idea what it was. The last thing she remembered was not very clear. She frowned as she tried to recall. She'd managed the teleport spell, even though she'd never done it before, but she'd felt like a lightning rod afterwards. And then...

"We brought somebody back?" she said aloud.

"We did?" said Lrfk's voice. Felwyn turned to look and discovered she was sitting on a cot, and Lrfk was just now sitting up on her own. Her feather mane stood up around her head like a dark halo, flecks of blue light crackling from the ends. Felwyn felt crackling at the tips of her own shorn hair, where her deer skull ought to be. She leaned forward and groped on the floor until she found it.

"Wha?" said Variel Slowburn, sitting up herself.

"Don't worry, Variel," Felwyn said. "Go back to sleep."

"Lord Marrowice will want to know you're awake," Variel said, and stumbled out of the small alcove.

"Where did Mir'noj go?" Lrfk said. Felwyn looked around as she settled her headdress atop her head. A soft groan from the hallway seemed like a probable answer. Felwyn took up her staff as she got up, and Lrfk fluttered up to perch on it. _I feel fine, _Felwyn thought. _Why were we sleeping?_

Both of them stared as they entered the torchlit corridor.

"Mir'noj," Felwyn said. "Why are you sitting on the floor?"

"Better question," Lrfk said. "_How _is he sitting on the floor? How come I can see him with my _eyes?_"

"Aaaargh," Mir'noj said, clutching his head. Felwyn tried closing her living eye, then her Undead one.

"And how is he making actual noises?" Lrfk said.

"You're visible," she said. She reached out a hand. It passed through Mir'noj's shoulder, but she felt resistance, like putting her fingers in cold water. "You're almost there again. How did you do it?"

Mir'noj mumbled. Felwyn, listening closely, frowned. Lrfk fluttered up and down.

"Awww," Lrfk said. "He wanted to wake us up. But that was a really _stupid _way to do it."

"I think you and I wouldn't be much good without him, Darker," Felwyn said mildly. "I'm starting to understand."

"Glad one of us is," Lrfk said.

"Can you get up, Mir'noj?"said Felwyn.

"I believe so," Mir'noj said, and started to stagger upright.

On Felwyn's staff, Lrfk shifted from foot to foot. "Necromancer. Right before we woke up, did you..."

"I saw them," Felwyn said. "We'd better go outside. Lord Marrowice is going to need us."

---

"Lord Darkhallow?" Gen'dirhil said timidly.

The death knight made a mildly inquiring sound. Since he did not swat Gen'dirhil with Whitecleaver again, the necromancer took this as a sign that he might continue.

"Er... Why are we here?"

"Because the Lich King wills it," the death knight said. Gen'dirhil fiddled with the bolts on a meat wagon, glancing furtively at his Lord. Their rough camp lay in a small hollow, screened from the surrounding plane by scant trees and plentiful grass.

"We are not, perhaps, seeking something here in the Barrens?"

"Of course we are, Fool," Lord Darkhallow said. "You don't suppose I am here for my health, do you?"

"Is it a secret, Lord?" Gen'dirhil asked. He edged a little further away, but curiosity had by now reached a level where it interfered with his instinct for self-preservation.

"No." Darkhallow fingered the hilt of his runeblade, producing a sound that had nothing to do with the scrape of armor on steel. Gen'dirhil tried to pretend he hadn't heard any chorus of ethereal voices. He was becoming quite good at it.

"I did not tell you because I considered that you do not need to know," Darkhallow said. "You already show a disturbing tendency to reason rather than obey."

"I am sorry, Lord," Gen'dirhil said.

"Hm." The death knight raised a white eyebrow. "Be that as it may, I suppose you will need to know sooner or later. We seek the Well of Sib'lin Sawu."

"Sib'lin Sawu,"Gen'dirhil repeated slowly. "This is a Human name, Lord?"

"A very ancient Human, yes," Darkhallow said. "The Well has been lost for some time, but the Lich King now believes it may be found in the Barrens. A well of power would allow us to establish quite a base here. Even a small one, as Sawu's Well is said to be."

Gen'dirhil did not ask how the Lich King knew. That was heresy, and punishable by death. Besides, he did not want to interfere with Lord Darkhallow's present mood. Every hour that saw him alive and with no new bruises was a good one, in the Scourge.


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

_A/N: in case anyone forgot, the harpy rogue as used here and in WCIII is not the same as the rogue character class in WoW. Harpy rogues tend to be larger than their spellcaster sisters, brownish in color, and do not practice any magic._

"Hey, there's Lrfk," Serrw said. "I guess she didn't die. - That was _my _scrrring fish, Knnr."

"Hhek," protested the little rogue. "I just caught it. You ate yours already."

"I did not. Give me that."

"Rrgh ah scrrrrr..."

Her mother was gliding over to see Lrfk. Knnr, still indignant over the theft of her fish, paid little attention to this. She ducked her head into the stream, letting the water run over her feather mane and her teeth. Fish were tasty, but they were messy.

When she hopped back up on the bank, shaking her head vigorously, she saw the new dead man still standing there looking at them. Dev was watching the others, fingers interlaced with her wolf's mane. Knnr edged toward the Undead. He watched her. His eyes were very black, like Dev's, but Dev's didn't smoke. Not that Knnr remembered, anyway.

She walked up to the dead man, so that she had to lean far back to see his face. She was still only three feet tall or so, small for a harpy rogue.

"I'm Knnr," she said in Common. "What's your name?"

"Caden," the dead man said.

"You're really big," Knnr said.

"Yes," Caden said.

"I bet not a lot of people would bother somebody as big as you."

"You're wrong," Caden said glumly. "Or I wouldn't be here."

"Can I sit on your shoulder?" Knrr said, with very typical persistence. "I'm light."

The dead man frowned very slowly, as if he'd forgotten what the muscles were for and was only just remembering.

"Why would you want to do that?"

"So Serrw won't take my fish," Knnr said.

"You don't have a fish," Caden said.

"I'm going to catch another one," Knnr said. "I promise not to scratch you." She held up a foot talon demonstratively, spreading her wings for balance.

"I don't care," Caden said.

"About what?" Knnr said.

"Either one."

"Okay," Knnr said. "Be right back!"

She and Caden were going to be _such _good friends, Knnr thought happily. Admittedly, Knnr's definition of "good friends" was something like "people who never kill you or steal your shinies." For a four-year-old harpy, it was significant progress that she understood the idea at all.

---

The news that Felwyn and Lrfk were awake was quickly followed by the girls themselves. Felwyn glided serenely out of the mine just as Variel Slowburn finished her sleepy explanation.

"Thank you, Variel, you may go," Phage said. "Are you all right, Felwyn?"

Felwyn Smallfinger came toward them, Lrfk firmly perched atop the crossbar of her staff. To Phage's anxiously searching gaze, they both looked fully recovered. "Yes, Lord," she said. "We're fine. We might have some bad news."

"I'm afraid you're too late for that," Phage said. "A shade has just returned from the Crossroads."

"Then you've heard about Lord Darkhallow," Felwyn said. "I'm sorry we weren't here sooner, Lord. Mir'noj had some trouble waking us."

"There is nothing to regret," Phage said. "I am glad you are recovered. You gave us some cause for concern."

Beside him, he heard Skrch land hastily. A puff of air from her wings tugged at the hem of his kilt.

"We overshot our goal," Lrfk said. "I think we've got a better handle on it now. There's more power than we're either one used to dealing with."

"So I saw," Phage said. He remembered with perfect clarity how thick the air inside the Temple had been, and how suddenly and how completely the dead Human had revived. "Do you think you could use it again?"

Skrch seemed to be hastily translating for the warlock. Shel'yin was eyeing them all with apparent misgiving, but Phage began to suspect this was normal for him.

Felwyn and Lrfk cocked their heads in unison, listening to something Phage could not hear. "I think so," Felwyn said. "Mir'noj says he can bleed some of it off, if he has to. It's backing up like water behind a dam now. I thought it was just because it was new for the three of us to be using mana together, but that's not enough to explain it. We're not sure where it's all coming from."

"Are you entirely sure of Mir'noj?" Phage said.

Felwyn smiled her sweet smile. In her scarred face, with her one blue eye, another Human might find it eerie. Phage did not care, any more than he cared about Viri's disfigurements or his own constant pain. It was who they were. It was who _he _was.

"Oh, yes," Felwyn said. "He can't do without us now. Besides, he's sorry for what he did."

"I'm sure he is," Phage Marrowice said. _One way or another._

"Sorry to interrupt," Skrch said. Phage watched as she reluctantly tore her eyes from her daughter. "The warlock has something to say."

"Yes, Shel'yin?" Phage said. The tall Orc laid his hands atop the animal skull on his staff as he spoke.

"He says your problem is worse than you think," Skrch said.

_Of course, _Phage thought. _It always is._

"He says everyone at Crossroads saw a bunch of Undeads attack," Skrch said. "So now they'll be looking for an Undead base. And since you're – what was that word? - Staying in one place? _Stationary, _that's it. Since you're stationary, you'll be easier to find than the ones who really attacked them. I think he thinks you attacked them before, too, because of the dead Humans."

"Ha," Phage said humorlessly.

"What?" Skrch said.

"We picked up the bodies after a battle between Humans and green Orcs," Phage said. "But your point is taken, warlock. It's probable that Kirv and Gray were seen, and entirely possible that someone saw what direction they took to come back here."

"If you'll excuse us, Lord, we'll go and help Ner'zirhud," Felwyn said.

"Please do," Phage said. Felwyn bowed slightly and glided past him, toward the Temple of the Damned.

---

Ner'zirhud, oblivious to any of this, was watching his two new ghouls clamber out of the sand bath at last. They shook themselves vigorously as they stood on the floor, sending sand flying. Magic and preservation had done their work. The ghouls' skin was taut and leathery, and their teeth and claws were far too long for anything human.

"Yes, very good," Ner'zirhud said. "Let's have a look at you, shall we?"

Both ghouls immediately turned to look at him. One ran a papery tongue over its left front claws.

"Come here," Ner'zirhud said.

The two ghouls rose and padded over to him immediately.

"Good, good. We're doing as we're told already, that will save some time. Speak?"

The two ghouls looked at each other, then at Ner'zirhud.

"Speeakkk whaaaat?" one said.

"Anything. It doesn't matter."

"Okaaaay," said the other one.

"Fine. Perfect. Go outside. The others will get you an insignia and some meat."

"Gnargh," the first ghoul said with apparent goodwill. The two new Undead trotted out of the Temple just as Felwyn and Lrfk came in.

"Guess what?" Lrfk said. "There are some Scourge around who might be after us, they hit Crossroads this morning, and we're probably going to be attacked by a whole bunch of angry Humans and Orcs. Want us to help you with those two dead men there?"

"Oh, dear," Ner'zirhud said weakly. "I suppose you had better."

He sighed. It was a good thing he'd got the new chains on. If these two were going to turn out anything like Caden the Crooked, he was going to need them.


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

"Shade," Phage Marrowice said.

"Yes, Lord."

Viri Starwater crouched in the small doorway of the nearest ziggurat, listening to all that was said. She did not much care for the warlock Shel'yin. His heartbeat was louder than either Dev Blackstare or her wolf. The sound offended Viri's sensitive ears. _Life impinging on the home of Death. _Besides, the scrap of independent thought that was now stirring made her distrust his intentions. She had not been a trusting woman in life. Except for the one being in whom her trust was desperate and complete, this had not changed.

"Find the others if you can," Lord Marrowice said to the shade. "Bring them back in. I don't want any of you more than three miles from camp, do you understand? Lord Darkhallow no doubt has shades of his own, and I can't afford to lose you, but we need to see them first."

"Yes, Lord."

A faint puff of air reached Viri's hiding place as the shade hurried away.

"You must send to my Chieftain,"Shel'yin said in his own language. "He will abide by the agreement I have made with you."

"He said you should send someone to ask Chieftain Redmorning for help," Skrch translated. The harpy kept looking from Phage to the Temple to the stream, trying to watch all her scattered children.

Phage shrugged, a difficult maneuver with shoulderblades but no actual shoulders. "Then whom shall I send? The warlock and the warrior must of course return to their people, but it's likely we'll be attacked before they could arrive there and return. It's a long walk from here to their village, I understand."

"I will not go," the warlock said, when this was translated. "You are correct in that I would not travel fast enough. Besides - "

"Send me," Viri Starwater said. She rose and came to stand beside Lord Marrowice. "I will run."

Lord Marrowice did not turn his skull. "Thank you, Huntress, but I do not think even you would be fast enough."

"She would if we carry her," Skrch said.

The Lich and the Orc turned to look at Skrch. Huntress Starwater kept watching Lord Marrowice. He had not looked at her since the waking of Caden, and she began to suspect she knew the reason. _I am not what I should be_. Her older memories kept trying to tell her something was horribly wrong with her, didn't they? She remembered her own waking far too well, and she was certain she had not been able to speak for days afterward. _If I am less than the others, I can only fail him. Perhaps I have already done so. There is much I am not able to discern._

"What?" Lord Marrowice said now.

"One of my girls can carry half a dead kodo or a whole dead zhevra," Skrch said. "Huntress Starwater weighs what, a hundred and something pounds?That's nothing. They're maybe not smart enough to carry much of a message themselves, but they can carry the Huntress easy enough."

"Viri, will you do this?" Lord Marrowice said.

"Of course, Lord," Viri said. _He should not have to ask. There _is _something wrong, _Viri thought, almost frantically. _I must not, I will not fail him this time..._

"Then Skrch?" Lord Marrowice said.

The red queen rose into the air and glided toward the stream. A moment later the largest of her daughters, a brown-eyed rogue, came flapping back.

"Who do I carry?" she said.

---

Inside the necropolis, Fractalle the banshee bobbed in front of a table of black stone. A helpful acolyte had summoned it just for her, so she no longer had to try to hover close to the floor to read her book. She had taught one of the ghouls to turn her pages, though this had taken a long time. It was also dark inside the necropolis, except for the eerie green glow from the walls, but that was no problem for Fractalle.

The letters were very old, but the Human who had written them had seemingly had an excellent grasp of several Elven tongues. Languages change over time, but Elven language changes less than that of many other races. Besides, Fractalle had been dead since well before the book was written, albeit some way from here. No, the biggest trouble was the man's handwriting. It was very small and irregular, wandering from the lines as if he had been trying to do something else while he wrote. Sometimes there were stains and inkblots. The author was not a man who particularly enjoyed writing, but for some reason he had made the effort.

"Turn the page," Fractalle said. The ghoul who sat atop the table reached a careful claw to obey. The page crackled, but did not fall to dust. Fractalle was sure some powerful enchantment had been used to keep it whole over time, for after a thousand years in a mound of dirt it should surely have crumbled.

"Goooooood?" the ghoul said hopefully, the way it did every single time.

"Good ghoul," Fractalle said absently. The ghoul purred.

_Eye have made trial off thyse well another tyme, _read Fractalle. The author's grasp of spelling in Old Lwelne was not bad, but it could have been better. _Itte is notte exhausted bye alle mye effortes, tho eye mayke trial off it wyth many grave sorceryes. Eye stille cannot say what hath caused the opning off thyse greatt source in thyse plase, so far from habitation off menne or elves. Elye who was called Treeskimmer is off great holp to me in thyse time, as at all tymes, but she waxeth not greater and eye fear wee will have no childe. Itte is notte to be wondered at, for eye am grewn old ande she is notte, tho she be off many more years than am eye._

"An Elf who loved a Human," Fractalle murmured. Many and bitter were the causes that drove an Elven spirit to rise a banshee, and forbidden and fruitless love was not the least of them. Fractalle shook off the thought as she went on reading. Sawu the Enchanter might have lacked polish, but his narrative was nothing if not compelling.

---

"It must be thirty miles from here to the village," the warlock Shel'yin said.

"Un huh," said Dev Blackstare. The two Orcs stood by the stream, watching a harpy carry an Elf into the Western sky.

"There are many dangerous creatures between here and there," the warlock said.

"Don't worry," Skrch said, settling on the ground between the two Orcs. "I told Serrw no stopping to eat on the way."

---

"Hey, Brokeshovel," said a peon, staring out the window of a watchtower. "That harpy carrying something?"

"Guess so," said Brokeshovel, squinting toward the East. "Can't hardly see nothing. Go see if we're supposed to shoot it or not."

"'Kay," said the other peon, and turned for the door.

A moment later he was back, very quickly.

"'S getting closer," said Brokeshovel.

"No shooting it," said the other peon. "Chieftain says he wants to talk to it personal. And whoever it's carrying. I gotta go tell Greynose."

---

"Yes, that sounds like something Shel'yin would do," Veren Redmorning said, silently raining down curses on the head of his chief warlock. He could feel his bodyguards' silence behind him. He knew that if he looked back, Kev'ran would look him straight in the eye, and that would make it worse. _What does he think I'm going to tell her if he doesn't come back? Three thousand demons gut him with a dull hook and - _

Redmorning stopped himself with an effort, wiping sweat off his face. It was already blindingly hot, making it harder to think. Huntress Starwater was watching him with dull patience, apparently having decided his statement did not require reply. There was no decision to be made. He'd already made his offer, and now wasn't the time to be taking it back. He firmly quashed the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

_We're finished, as far as the Horde is concerned. There won't be any joining them after we slaughter a crowd of green Orcs to save the Undead, _he thought. What he said was, "The brood of Skrch is with you there?"

"Yes," the Huntress said. The fledgling Serrw perched atop a guard tower, chattering away at the peons inside.

"Good," Redmorning said. "You'll have that much reinforcement until we can get to you, at least. How is the camp situated?"

"Between a cliff to the West and a stream to the East. The surrounding terrain is rocky." She hesitated. When she spoke again her voice was a little less cold, a little more certain. "It will be passable to wolves, but not easily to anything wheeled or hoofed."

"How wide is the stream?"

"Perhaps twenty feet at its widest," Huntress Starwater said. "It is no more than a foot deep anywhere, at this time of year. The bottom is sandy. It will be easily crossed, even by siege machines."

"You think these Scourge can get siege engines all the way to where you are?" Redmorning said.

"They had three meat wagons at the Crossroads," Viri said.

"Hm." Redmorning considered. "We have four catapults now, but I don't see how we can get them to you. They'll weigh too much for the harpies to carry."

Viri Starwater looked at him from her milky eyes for a moment. Then she said slowly, as if with great difficulty:

"We have a dragon."

Redmorning squinted at her in the sun, his train of thought interrupted.

The Elf was not sweating – dead Elves probably didn't – but she seemed somehow _limper_ than usual. Strands of her gray hair had been allowed to escape, drifting about her face. "Huntress, are you all right? Should we go inside?"

Huntress Starwater blinked. "Heat nor cold makes no difference," she said. "I should return."

"Yes, of course," Redmorning said. "Are you likely to be attacked before sunset?"

"No," the Huntress said.

"Tell Lord Marrowice we'll be on our way as soon as it starts to cool off. It's not safe to move everyone in this heat."

"Yes," the Huntress said. One hand tightened convulsively and relaxed. Redmorning heard Loudwhisper shift his feet behind him, but the Huntress did not seem to notice. "He – Lord Marrowice – would wish me to thank you," she said. Then she turned and walked away, toward the tower.

"Kev'ran," Redmorning said.

"Yes, Chieftain."

"We are moving. Our new location has a solid wall at our backs, plenty of water, and is about to be attacked by a group of very angry Undead. Pass the word."

Dib Loudwhisper grunted a laugh as Kev'ran padded away.

"What, exactly, is funny?" Redmorning said.

"Always more _them _than _us_," Loudwhisper said. "Maybe different this time."

"Not once we're on the wrong side of the entire nation of Orgrimmar," Redmorning said.

Dib shrugged his massive shoulders. "Never liked them anyway," he said.


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Skrch stood on the lowest tier of the necropolis, taking advantage of the shade created by the dragon Kirv's giant wings. The enormous creature did not seem to mind the unrelenting sun. Kirv fanned her pinions occasionally, stretching the leathery membranes in the punishing heat. The skeleton Gray sat on one of her hind feet, dangling his bony legs over the edge of the top tier.

Skrch saw her daughter coming well before anyone else did. It helped that she came out of the West, and the sun was not yet past its zenith.

"They're coming back," she called. Lord Marrowice emerged from the doorway of the necropolis, pursued by a banshee who seemed to be trying to tell him something.

"But Lord, the book is - "

"Yes, fascinating, no doubt," the Lich said, waving a skeletal hand. "And I look forward to discussing it with you at length. Later."

The banshee was very difficult to see in the harsh daylight, but she seemed to be hesitating. A ghoul came out of the building behind her and stood alertly beside her, swaying slightly to and fro.

Then Skrch forgot about her as she saw Serrw dip down out of the sky. The young rogue let go of the Undead Elf some ten feet above the ground, flapping her wings unsteadily. Huntress Starwater hit the ground, rolled, and came up into an uncomfortable-looking crouch. Serrw barrelled straight past and would have run straight into the wall if Skrch had not put out a wing and hooked her out of the air.

"What's this, krrrahk?" she said in Saark.

"Can't see," Serrw said. Skrch held her daughter's shoulders carefully in her talons. Serrw's face was pale and sweaty, her eyes wide and unseeing. Skrch felt her forehead with the back of a talon.

"Sun blind again," she said. "Stupid, stupid little – forget it. Hold my tail and we'll glide."

Serrw obediently seized the presented tail feather with a foot talon, and the two of them glided down toward the stream. Behind her, Skrch heard a conversation going on, but she had other things to worry about. She dropped onto her feet by the stream and turned just in time to stop Serrw from falling over.

"What's wrong?" asked Dev Blackstare's voice. Skrch did not look around as she carefully set her daughter in the shade of the nearest ziggurat.

"Still carry that bottle?" Skrch said in Orcish. She held out a talon. A moment later someone pushed a skin bottle into it. She helped Serrw drink from it, supporting her back with her other wing.

"Better?" she said.

"My head hurts," said Serrw.

"Because you were stupid," Skrch said severely, in Saark. She heard movement behind her, probably because the Saark for this sounds very much like a shriek. "How many times have I told you to stop and drink when you fly in the sun?"

"You said no stopping," Serrw said.

"No stopping to chase zhevras! Not 'No stopping to get a drink and keeping your little head from frying.' Here. Drink some more."

"Is Serrw going to die?" said Ckkk's voice from on top of the ziggurat. "Can I have her bracelet?"

"No, she is _not _going to die," Skrch said. "And you don't _ever _take something that belongs to your sister. You know that." She pushed the bottle into Serrw's claw. "Here. Don't poke it or it will break. Drink it all."

Skrch turned to see Dev Blackstare squatting a couple of yards away, watching. The wolf Daysleeper stood by another ziggurat, tongue lolling. The intent stare he directed at the gray Orc gave Skrch to understand that he thought leaving the shade was a ridiculous idea.

"Thanks, Warrior," Skrch said. "She's got sun-blind again."

"Happens a lot?" Dev said.

"You have no idea," Skrch said bitterly. "I've lost three daughters this way, did I tell you that?"

"No," Dev said. "I'm sorry."

"Me, too," Skrch said.

Behind Blackstare, Caden the Crooked limped toward them. Skrch registered for the first time that Knnr was sitting on his shoulder.

"Knnr, there had better be a _really _good reason why you are sitting on that dead man."

"Caden is my friend," Knnr informed her mother. One talon was possessively twined in the Human's pale hair. "He said I can stay here. And eat fish if I want to. And he said if he kills anybody I can have their shinies. And he said if anybody kills _him _I could have _his _shinies, except he hasn't got any yet. But I bet he will." She resettled her weight contentedly, crossing her feathered legs in a way no bird could ever manage.

"Is that so?" Skrch said.

"Yes," Caden the Crooked said in his dull voice. He watched her, and Dev, and the other krrrahk without any apparent interest. "If I don't die right away. Again."

"Crossroads your first real fight?" Blackstare said.

"Second," Caden said.

"What'd you do before that?" Blackstare said. "You must've had some education. You speak pretty good Orcish."

The dead man looked blank. His black eyes steamed. "Why do you care?"

The gray Orc shrugged. "Care about lots of things. 'S how I got to be a scout. Trying to find things out all the time."

"Me, too," Skrch said. "Except for harpies it's more something you have to do. Can you see yet, Serrw?"

"Kind of," Serrw said, blinking. "Can I have some more water?"

Skrch took the skin bottle and crouched by the stream to refill it.

"Before," Caden said, and stopped. Skrch watched closely as her daughter drank again. She was still sweating. That was good. _The ones who died, they stopped sweating first._

"It's hard to see what happened before," Caden said. "And my head hurts... Even more than before... When I try. It probably doesn't matter."

"How do you figure that?" Blackstare said. She stood up, stretching. Stringy muscle pulled tight and relaxed under the gray skin of her shoulders.

"We're all going to die," Caden said.

"Been listening to the warlock, have you?" Blackstare said.

"The Scourge are coming," Caden said. "The Humans are coming. The Orcs are coming. We're all going to die. I'll be in the dark, like I was before." He did not sound panicked, or even particularly interested. It was just one more fact, like the sun or the stream or the harpy on his shoulder. Skrch, relieved to see Serrw already coherent enough to wash her face in the stream, thought, _He's not the same kind of Undead as the Huntress. He's not as confused, and he doesn't seem so cold. He's just sort of... There._

"You'll change your mind," Knnr said. She bumped her feathered head against Caden's much larger one. He did not respond to the touch, but he did not recoil from it.

"Just wait 'til they get here and we start fighting. Killing things is _way _more fun than getting killed."

"Yeah," said Vrawk, now standing beside Ckkk atop the ziggurat. "We've killed _lots _of things, and _they _didn't look like it was any fun at all."

---

"It is done, Lord," Viri Starwater said. "The Orcs will march at sunset." She stayed where she had landed, crouching like a ghoul on the ground. To be back among the dead was a tremendous relief. Her death-sense once again filled her inner vision with glowing shapes, and the roar of hearbeats was thinner. But something felt wrong with the inside of her chest as she looked at her Lord, a strange tightness through the constant pain of being. It seemed familiar. This was no comfort at all.

"How many is he sending?" Lord Marrowice asked.

"All," Viri said. "The entire village is moving."

Lord Marrowice paused in mid-hover, stiff in the air. The dim blue light flickered inside his skull, not quite like blinking. Inside Viri's head, the light was bright as the sun.

"_All _of them?" he said.

"Yes, Lord," Viri said. "They were dismantling their watchtowers when we left them."

"I... See," said Lord Marrowice. "Well done, Huntress."

Viri stared up at him, scarcely daring to believe. "I have not failed you?" she said.

Phage Marrowice looked at her for a long minute. He shook his skull slowly as the light in his sockets grew brighter, and Viri could see nothing but the glow. "Was that it?" he said. "You know, I seem to have got things entirely backwards once again. Viri Starwater, you have never, ever failed me. And stand up, will you? I know it technically is not, but that looks painful."

Viri rose to her feet, her paneled skirt swirling about her ankles. She had discovered another new feeling, and this one was new to both her selves: _Hope._

"I am not like Caden the Crooked, Lord," she said.

"You are not like anyone," Phage Marrowice said. "Undead are as varied as the living, Viri. More so, I sometimes dare to suppose. No one in this camp is more useful to me than you are, do you understand? Without you I have no hope of securing a place for all of us. That has never been truer than it is now."

Viri laid her right hand on her left glaive. She inclined her head in a way that owed more to the Elven huntress than the new Undead.

"Then as long as I have blood, bone, or flesh, I will not cease to serve you," said Viri Starwater.


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32

The Undeads spent the rest of the day preparing as best they were able. The four acolytes summoned until they were exhausted, creating armor for those who could wear it. Their largest project proved to be the construction of two new ziggurats to the North and South, covering the camp's rockier approaches. The skeleton Gray and the dragon Kirv flew to the village of the Tattered Banner and came back with a catapult. If Kirv minded the additional weight of one very small peon clinging for dear life, she had nothing to say on the subject.

Skrch watched all this with a little anxiety, but mostly with boredom. With claws for hands and feet, she was not good for much skilled labor, and the Undead seemed to prefer to do their heavy lifting themselves. The warlock Shel'yin disappeared inside the Temple of the Damned, presumably to see if the two necromancers needed any help. He did not ask for her to translate. Dev Blackstare paced the camp restlessly, like a caged wolf; the wolf Daysleeper lay on his side in the shade, like a wallowing pig.

The arrival of the dragon was almost a relief. Skrch willingly vacated the post atop the necropolis when she saw the great shadow pass overhead. The dragon swooped down to drop off its burden before returning to its customary perch. Skrch glided to the ground a few feet away to have a look at the strange contraption. She also saw the little Orc hop off, shake him or herself vigorously, and start checking parts of the machine. Skrch looked around to make sure none of her children was currently doing anything lethally stupid before she sidled over to see what was going on.

The Orc bustled about poking and tightening things, apparently oblivious to his or her surroundings. Skrch hopped up onto what seemed to be a bucket on a stick.

"What's this thing?" she said.

"'S a catapult," said the Orc's muffled voice. She lay on her back on the blighted ground, doing something underneath the machine. The soft alto identified her as female, though she looked more or less like any other peon to Skrch.

"I'm Skrch," Skrch said hopefully. The peon reappeared a moment later, wiping her hands on her trousers. Two glaives hung on her belt. They gleamed brightly, stark contrast to her dark and dusty tunic.

"'M Nez the Small," the peon said.

"Aren't those Night Elf weapons?" Skrch said.

"Yep," said Nez the Small.

"So where'd they come from?" Skrch said.

"Um. Night Elves," Nez said, as if this were not entirely obvious. "Attacked the Clan a couple times after we got in from Draenor. You seen a Lich?"

"He's in the necropolis," Skrch said. "The big building over there with the green steam flowing down off the walls."

"Um. Thanks," Nez said, and turned and went inside.

Skrch shifted from foot to foot, producing a faint creak from the catapult. It was hot. _Maybe somebody will attack us pretty soon, _she thought. She looked around. The plains were clear of anything but animals all the way to the horizon.

Skrch sighed.

_It's going to be a long afternoon._

---

Phage Marrowice did not hear Nez come in. He was busy trying to assimilate one of the more sudden revelations of his short unlife.

"We're on top of a well of death mana?" he said. "_Here?" _

"It appears so, Lord," said the banshee Fractalle. "The necromancer's journal says he found it beneath the gold mine. The book is ancient; the tunnels must have collapsed long since."

"Indeed," Phage said. "This... Explains a great deal."

_The fact that we're all still ali – well, Undead, for one, _he thought_. It explains how a necromancer of Ner'zirhud's limited talents managed to raise Viri with a mind and a personality, to the extent that one of us can be said to have one. It explains what has happened to Felwyn and Lrfk._

_And, _said the sector of whatever he was using for a brain that usually informed him of Extremely Bad News, _it explains why a large number of Scourge would suddenly appear on this continent in this area._

"Lord Darkhallow must be seeking the Well of – what was this necromancer's name?" Phage said.

"He called himself Sib'lin Sawu," Fractalle said. "If he had another Human name, it was never written down."

_The Scourge could establish quite a foothold on Kalimdor, with the base they could build over a well of power. Even a small one._

"I appreciate the information," Phage Marrowice said. "But I am not certain how it can help us now. We are already using the power to the extent that we are able - "

Behind him, a very quiet voice said something in Orcish. He pivoted in the air to view the little peon who stood just inside the doorway of the necropolis's atrium.

"Er... Excuse me?" said Phage Marrowice.

---

"Lord Darkhallow?"

The death knight did not twitch at the shade's sudden voice. Among other things, the blade of Whitecleaver sometimes showed reflections of things that were not actually visible. Now Darkhallow stood with the sword held up before his face, studying the runes as he observed the spirit's tentative approach behind him. He stood on an escarpment well above the plain, making it necessary for the ghostly creature to drift uphill.

"What is it, shade?" he said, his tone of voice making it clear that if it was not important, the shade could easily find out how many fates _were _worse than death.

"I believe I have found the Well, Lord," the shade said.

Darkhallow lowered the sword and turned to glare at the patch of air that he knew contained his scout.

"You _believe _you have found it?"

"I was unable to approach very near to its location, Lord," the shade said, speaking quickly. "There is a base of Undeads already established there."

"A _base? Here?"_

"Yes, Lord, I am cer - "

"Silence," Darkhallow said.

The shade obediently stopped speaking while his Lord pondered this development.

"Are they Forsaken?" the death knight asked eventually.

"I do not think so, Lord," the shade said. "The buildings resembled Scourge buildings. I heard speech only in the distance, but it did not sound like Gutterspeak."

"Describe this encampment," Darkhallow said. "Be thorough. And be quick."

He listened as the shade went on.

"A _dragon?_" he interrupted at one point. "How could any banshee possibly have succeeded in possessing a dragon?"

"I do not know, Lord," the shade said. "But it was ridden by a skeleton. Perhaps it is merely tamed."

"Tamed? By Undeads? Nonsense. Keep your opinions to yourself. Go and tell Gen'dirhil everything you have told me."

"Yes, Lord!" the shade said, and receded rapidly enough that a faint puff of hot breeze stirred Darkhallow's hair. He pushed it irritably back over his pauldrons. He was dimly aware that his armor should be lethally hot in direct sunlight, but as long as he held Whitecleaver, a rime of frost formed over the surface of everything he wore.

"A dragon," he muttered. "And harpies. And... Wisps? But no Elves? What is going on here?"

Whitecleaver murmured.

"Yes, of course," Darkhallow said. "It does not matter. They are not Scourge, and we will obliterate them." He turned to look with satisfaction on his army. They should easily overpower the small settlement the shade had described, and Darkhallow's shades were too frightened of him – of him, a living Human! - to come to him with inaccurate information.

His ghouls and abominations were looking a little shriveled by the heat, except for the newest ones Gen'dirhil had put together after their _second _raid on the Crossroads. (Really, these adventurers were slow learners.) That was all right. Dryness would slow them but little, and in any case he had no intention of attacking in full daylight. Besides, thanks to his new recruits, he should have an easy numerical advantage. Zombies were not his favorite troops, but needs must.

"The Well of Sib'lin Sawu _will _be ours," Darkhallow said.

The sword in his hands gonged, like the distant tolling of a bell.

---

Caden the Crooked stood in the shade of a ziggurat and watched the camp's ghouls bustle back and forth. He was not bothered by the heat, in fact would never be bothered by it again, but Knnr had complained. He saw no reason not to comply with her wishes. The frantic agony and self-loathing of his first moments had given way to a constant dull ache, an immovable inertia. The sky had fallen down on his head, and beside that weight he was hardly able to notice any other. Sooner or later it would crush this obscene parody of life out of him. Until then, it was only a matter of waiting.

Had he but known it, Caden had essentially the opposite problem from Viri Starwater. It was true that trying to remember made his head hurt, impossible as that ought to be, but for the most part he did not try. He had every expectation of being annihilated before the next morning, so there was no reason to pursue the painful suggestion of _parents _and _brothers_ and _fellow soldiers _that kept trying to present itself.

In the meantime, the little harpy's heartbeat by his ear helped to distract him. Knnr seemed to have nodded off, balanced on his higher shoulder with her wings folded around her knees.

"Is that an abomination?" said a voice off to his right.

"No, stupid. We're downwind, aren't we? Do _you _smell anything? That's him." This sound was followed by the distinctive _clunk _of a set of heavy armor being dropped onto the hard earth. "Hey! Big man! Could you come and get this, please?"

Caden turned to see an acolyte, sweat drenching the front of her robe, standing behind a large pile of black iron.

"What?" he said.

"Lord Marrowice said you ought to have some armor," the acolyte said. "Here's the half, and I can't carry it any further. Jory's got the rest. How come Varen couldn't do this?" the girl demanded irritably of her companion, who was presently unburdening himself of what seemed to be greaves and boots.

"Ha. _You _try waking him up. He just fell over after that last ziggurat, and we're lucky he hasn't got heat stroke. Frankly I'd just as soon have him an acolyte as a shade, wouldn't you, Variel?"

"Fine," said Variel Slowburn, pushing her damp hair back under her hood. "Can you put it on yourself? We have things to do. We'll be back with a sword or an axe or something. Later."

"Yes," Caden the Crooked said.

"Good. So long." The two acolytes turned and glided away. Caden limped forward to pick up the breastplate. It seemed to have been made to his shape, creating an odd hump on one side. Knnr shifted her weight, grumbling.

"Hey! You're out in the sun again. What's _that?_"

"My armor," Caden said.

"It's not very shiny."

"We'll probably be fighting at night," Caden said. Memory obtruded. "Shiny attracts arrows. And worse things."

"Such as me," Knnr said. She hopped off his shoulder and poked at a boot with a taloned foot. "Oh, well. At least Serrw is leaving me alone. Stupid Serrw. Are we going to kill things pretty soon? What's making that noise?"

Caden paused in buckling on the breastplate. A sound was indeed drifting down the wind, a howl that no animal's throat had ever made. The sound was far away, but Caden the Crooked recognized it. _I made sounds like that. Yesterday._

"That's a zombie," he said.

"A what?"

"A dead Human."

"Like you?" Knnr said. She cocked her head as Caden began putting on the greaves.

"More or less," Caden said grimly.

"So we can't kill them?"

"It won't be easy," Caden said.

"So clawing its head off won't work?"

Caden frowned. "I don't know," he said.

"I bet it will," Knnr said.


	33. Chapter 33

Chapter 33

The Tattered Banner began its march as the sun began to set. They traveled as a caravan, with the warlocks and peons at the center and the warriors all around them. With many wolf riders walking, the wolves were free to pull the travois that held the clan's few possessions, but it would still take some hours to cover the thirty-odd miles to the Undead camp.

They had covered perhaps ten miles under the first stars when they saw the campfires.

---

"Sixty of 'em," said the raider. She patted her wolf's shoulder idly as the animal shifted position. "Humans and Green Orcs. They're not looking too glad to see each other, but they're not fighting."

Veren Redmorning swore quietly. _Huntress Starwater was right. They must be looking for Lord Marrowice's people. This many of them couldn't be after anything else out here. _"Can we go around them, Halfgrey?"

The scout Tore Halfgrey shrugged her thin shoulders. Her expression was hard to see in the dark, even for a gray Orc with fairly good night vision, but her voice was doubtful. "Gonna be a long trip, Chieftain. They're right across our way and they've got rocks on both sides."

"Did they see you, Halfgrey?"

"Don't know, Chieftain,"said the raider. "I'd say no, but some of them are wolf-mounted too, and the wind keeps changing. Bloody huge beasts."

"The wolves or the Orcs?" Redmorning said.

Halfgrey snorted. "Some of 'em have had better eats than we have, for sure, but _they're _no bigger. Beats me where they found some of those wolves, though. They're big as the horses the Humans are riding."

"I see. Thank you, Halfgrey, you're dismissed. Stay alert."

"Yes, Chieftain," said Tore Halfgrey, and turned to ride the wolf back toward the front of the column.

"Right," Veren muttered. "I suppose we'd better at least make the effort." He began to follow the raider toward the front, where he could see the campfires gleaming perhaps a hundred yards off. Kev'ran and Loudwhisper came behind him, and he heard Orcs muttering as they had to move aside to let the enormous bodyguard pass.

_If they're not complete idiots, they'll know we're here soon, _Redmorning thought_. Even if their spellcasters are all asleep, the night's pretty clear and at the moment we're upwind._

He was at the frontmost group of raiders when a familiar figure slunk out of the night on his right side. The wolf Lightrunner huffed in greeting as the helmeted figure on his back shook her head.

"Chieftain," Kerd Bladeleaper said patiently, "_what _are you doing up here?"

"I'm going to give them a chance to let us by before they are forced to completely slaughter us," Redmorning said.

"Chieftain," Bladeleaper said. "Maybe your eyes don't glow, but I know mine sure as Nether do, and so do most everyone else's here. You think they're going to let us through when they see _that?_ You think they'll believe we're not serving the demons any more? You sure you don't want to go around?"

"We don't have time," Redmorning said. "Lord Marrowice is probably going to be attacked this very night, and we need to be there to fulfill our treaty. I don't want to be the one explaining to him that we were too late because it was _risky._ Do you?"

Kerd shrugged. "You're the boss. Kev'ran, don't let him get himself killed, huh?"

"One tries," Kev'ran said.

Redmorning jogged forward to a point about halfway between the column and the camp. He could see one or two figure standing silhouetted, foolishly backlit by the fires, but most of the camp seemed to be staying low. _And I really doubt all of them are asleep. _He tried not to imagine the sound of arrows being nocked as he came to a halt. _Of course not, _he thought with bleak humor. _Trolls carry spears. No sound at all._

"Hello the camp!" he shouted.

The sound came back from the rocks in a single echo, then faded. Far away, something howled in response.

A moment later, he heard a rustle in the tall grass in front of him. Hairs rose along the back of his neck as Kev'ran began winding up mana. The sound of Dib Loudwhisper's club rasping between his palms seemed unnaturally loud.

"Who's there?" Veren said.

A gangly shape coalesced out of the air a couple of yards away, too tall for a Human, too thin for an Orc. _He was invisible. Since when can Trolls go invisible?_ Redmorning thought. But the creature was unmistakable, even in the dark. If nothing else, the tall spike of white hair practically glowed.

"Whatchoo wan'?" the Troll said.

"You speak for everyone?" Redmorning said.

"Nah," the Troll said. "We no army. Nobody spik for no one. I come see whatchoo makin' all da noise for."

"You're not an army? Then what are you doing here?" Redmorning said.

"Onny ting you see Oak an' Uman togeddafo. Lookin' fo trezha. Some Undead 'it Crossroods tu time an we figrin dey got someting wort abbin."

Redmorning replayed this silently, trying to translate it into Orcish. "You're not looking for revenge?" he said, when he thought he had it.

"Mebbe a few," the Troll said. "No me. I just lukinfer gol'. Whatchoo ear fo?"

"My people and I need to get through that pass," Redmorning said.

"Den you outta luck," the Troll said at once. "'Alf dose Humans be drinkin an a good numba Oaks tu. Yu go walkin up, it jus as likely dey kill you an take whatchoo got. Utree got no chanz."

"Oh, there are more than three of us," Redmorning said. _Bladeleaper must have everyone standing around with their eyes closed, or he'd see them._

"Don try it," the Troll said. "Iffa Uman can' fight drunk, he be ded first week e spend adventurin. Oaks tu. No makit easy foya."

"I appreciate the warning," Redmorning said. "And because you've warned us, I'll return the favor. I'd gather up my bedroll and be off, if I were you."

"Ugotta be - "

The Troll stiffened. Redmorning could not tell in the dark, but he seemed to be staring at something over Veren's shoulder.

"So dat ow it is," he said.

Then he turned and sprinted back toward the camp.

"What just happened?" Redmorning said.

"Turn around," Kev'ran said. Veren looked behind him.

At many, many pairs of eyes, glowing red or green in the dark.

"Let's get back," he said, and started to run toward the little lights. _Bladeleaper's right. The Green Orcs see this, they're not going to ask for a parlay._

"Move!" he shouted down the column as he ran past the first cordon. "We'll have to get through them as best we can!"

The wheels of catapults creaked in the night. The column began to move. Veren Redmorning stopped and let it flow past him until his usual post came up, then turned and trotted along in front of a travois. Off to one side, he saw Rokhyel Shadebreaker with his sword up on his shoulder. Dark mana hissed along the blade. Glaive was nowhere to be seen, but Redmorning felt sure she was close by.

_I wish Nez was here, _he thought, and then put that thought away, because Nez was somewhere even less safe than here, surety for his promise. And if they did not get through this camp, it was certain he would not see her ever again. Or Shel'yin, for that matter, and surely someone must be worried about that raider... What was her name? Dev Blackstare?

The campfires grew rapidly larger up ahead. A tall figure with a spear loomed up and was promptly cut down by something that whirred as it flew. _Glaive._ Voices shouted in Orcish and in the Common tongue, and then the column's front formation of raiders arrowed into the firelight. The camp erupted as everyone in it scrambled for mounts and weapons.

Veren Redmorning felt mana fizzing all around him as the warlocks prepared to defend themselves. He concentrated on pulling up his own magics as he prepared his bladestorm. He was still inside the cordon of raiders, but you never knew if there might be -

A wyvern dove in from overhead. Redmorning let fly with his spell at the same time that Kev'ran cast a fireball. The result was predictably messy. One or two Humans cried out as burning shreds of wyvern fell on them. The brighter ones were already closing in on the warlocks, blades and hammers and maces in hand.

Unfortunately for them, they did it in a tight group. Rokhyel Shadebreaker snapped his sword forward, and a cloud of black dust rose around the nearest Humans. Those inside it began to scream, but Veren Redmorning had no time for that, because his raiders were falling back as they tried to protect the column and keep everyone moving forward, and the Green Orcs were attacking from his other side.

"Loudwhisper!" Redmorning said. "I do _not _want to lose anyone over there, you understand?"

Loudwhisper did not answer, because his strained voice could not penetrate the noise. Besides, no answer was necessary. Two of the Green Orcs' wolves were on fire, victims of some quick-thinking warlock, and they were snapping indiscriminately at everything around them as they hurled themselves back and forth. The attack from the right was effectively disrupted as the Green Orcs switched from trying to attack to trying to avoid being bitten and set on fire.

And now the way ahead was clear, miraculously empty of anything but dead bodies. A familiar thin shape scampered into the path of the clan. Glaive's cape had been torn off, but she seemed to be completely unmarked.

"All clear," the Elf announced cheerily. "Green Orcs just as slow as you."

"Oh, good," Veren Redmorning said.

The Tattered Banner Clan marched on into the night, leaving utter chaos in its wake.


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter 34

As night began to fall, Ner'zirhud stood in front of his newest project, panting unhappily. He needed more time, that was it – even with Felwyn's help, the output of power had been his alone, and... He was not growing any stronger with time. His mana was entirely gone.

"Felwyn, would you light the candles?" he said. "Thank you."

The girl glided silently around the edge of the room, lighting the drippy tallow candles in their iron sconces. She left one unlit, because the candle had burnt to a nub, and the harpy Lrfk stood perched on it. Every so often she rustled her black wings, but she was uncharacteristically silent.

Ner'zirhud had taken down the wards of preservation. The two remaining Humans were almost animate. He _felt _the souls nearby, tethered where he had constrained them. But he could not make them return, could not make these dead men _live. _It had been all he could do to resurrect Viri Starwater over several days, and immortals were always easier to bring back.

"Oh, dear," Ner'zirhud said, and paused to breathe. "You know, I never was much good at this."

"Of course you are," Felwyn said. "Could you have taught all of us if you weren't?"

"A very good student may learn much even from a bad teacher," Ner'zirhud. "Ahem. It does not matter now, I'm afraid. There's nothing more I can do with these tonight, and we have no more time. Is there anything you can do, the two of you?"

"Mir'noj?" Felwyn said. "Are you ready?"

Ner'zirhud was certain he heard it, a whisper of sound just over the threshold of hearing.

"Good," Felwyn said. "Lrfk?"

"I'm ready," Lrfk said. "But these men won't be ready by the time we're attacked, will they? I've seen the Scourge coming. I know you saw them, too."

"Maybe they can still help," Felwyn said.

"You're the necromancer," Lrfk said, and glided over to perch on Felwyn's staff.

"It is more important that you don't spend yourselves," Ner'zirhud said. "Lord Marrowice will have need of you, and soon."

"We'll do the best we can," Felwyn said. "We're still pretty new at this, Sir." She slid over to the first Human, a thin little man with black hair. She looked down at him with both eyes, living and Undead. Ner'zirhud stared at the corpse for the hundredth time in the last few hours. The back of the man's head had been crushed, and Ner'zirhud had spent a long time rearranging the plates of his skull. He'd had to shave the man to get at the more serious bits, and now the black hair that had showed signs of very careful grooming was reduced to a thin fuzz.

"He must've been an archer," she said. "Or a rapier-fighter. He had clever hands."

"I can see it," Lrfk said. "Quick. He has to stay quick."

"Caden the Crooked is quick," Felwyn said. "This man will be like lightning."

"Lightning's a storm magic. This will be my gift," Lrfk said. She hopped off the staff onto the dead man's chest. One wing talon reached out to make a mark from one side of his chest to the other, a jagged line. It did not bleed, but it began to glow blue-black, lambent in the dim room. Lrfk returned to her perch. "Now."

Felwyn tightened her grip on the staff with her left hand, and reached out to lay her right over the dead man's heart. She said no word of power, but mana rose around her with a hum like a swarm of bees. Ner'zirhud tried not to envy her, though what she was doing was in no book of necromancy ever written. _I have never had her scars. For all my learning from books, I have not been through the fire._

The ghostly voice of Mir'noj whispered again, and ribbons of black light rose like a cloak around Felwyn's shoulders. It shot down her arm and into the body, and she fell back a step as it left her. The dark light fizzled as it sank down into the corpse. The glow in his new wound died down.

Felwyn did not wait, but glided on to the other man. He was taller, and broader through the shoulders, though he was still much smaller than Caden the Crooked. (Ner'zirhud had had a _terrible _time getting him up onto the table, with all the acolytes busy summoning at the time.) The dead man's hair was brown and short.

"Er. I am certain he was a mage," Ner'zirhud said. "He carried a staff, and no other weapon. A mage, and he died by magic. The body was half-frozen when it arrived, even though the sun was hot."

"He died by the ice," Felwyn said. "That seems right. He'll belong here. Mir'noj, do you have a gift for him?"

Again the almost-whisper. Snow coalesced out of the air and fell down onto the dead mage's cloudy eyes. There it clung, and grew brighter until it shone like pale fire. Felwyn laid her right hand on his face, the tips of her two fingers touching his eyes. Again the dark light rose, and again it sank down into the body. Felwyn staggered a little this time. Ner'zirhud caught her elbow and steadied her.

"Go and sit down, Felwyn. No one could ask for more," he said. "I'll see to them now."

"Thank you, Ner'zirhud," she said obediently, and stumbled over to sit on a bench.

Ner'zirhud might not be much of a necromancer, but he was _not _a slow learner. Both men were bound heavily with chains, and Ner'zirhud heard the first jangle as the small man twitched. Then the magus moaned, and then both of them were writhing in their bonds, trying to escape from their own dead flesh.

But even their screams did not drown out the snarling from outside.

---

"What's wrong with the ghouls?" Dev Blackstare said, fingering the hilt of her scimitar. Every ghoul in the camp seemed to be standing on its hind legs, growling at something no one could see.

"The wind has changed again," said th warlock Shel'yin. He stood with his arms folded, looking anything but nervous. Dev tried to look the same as she sneaked a glance at Daysleeper. He crouched beside her, staring at the darkening west. The wolf's hackles stood on end.

"I think he smells it, too," she said. "Heard something howling out there, before the ghouls started acting up."

"Yes," Shel'yin said. "There are dead in great number not far from us. They must still be more than a mile away, or we would see their eyes." The warlock's own eyes were quite visible in the dusk, gleaming red so that the pupil and iris were no longer to be seen.

"The clan won't be here for a few hours yet," Dev said. "Right?"

"Yes," Shel'yin said.

"So we're gonna be overrun," Dev said.

"In all probability," the warlock said calmly. "Are you afraid, Warrior?"

Dev snorted. "Demons, yeah. Every time I ever fought. Difference being, last time I thought I had a chance at surviving."

"Really?" said the warlock Shel'yin. "I have expected to die every time I have ever faced an enemy."

"I'd think you'd be a wreck," Dev said.

"Not since I was very young," Shel'yin said.

"You're not exactly old now," Dev said.

"Perhaps not," Shel'yin said. "I do not expect I shall become much older."

"Un huh," Dev said. She reached out and patted the wolf's big head. She ought to try and turn him loose, really, but she doubted he would go. He'd been hers since he was a cub, back on Draenor where the runt of a litter generally got eaten by his brethren. _And not just wolves. We used to hear funny things about the Bonechewer Clan, too..._ Twisting Nether, that seemed a long way off. Everything seemed far away now. It was just her, and Daysleeper, and Shel'yin, in the middle of a big patch of blight surrounded by dead men.

"Gonna be a long night," she said.

"Only if we are very fortunate," Shel'yin said.

Blackstare bit her tongue. _I'd better hope the Scourge _do _kill him, because pretty soon I'll be doing my dead level best myself._

---

Skrch felt uneasy. This was not unusual, in a life spent mostly trying to keep her offspring from the inevitable, but this was different. The fledglings seemed to feel it, too. The ghouls had fallen silent down below. Serrw, Ckkk, Vrawk and Trrilik stood around her on top of the necropolis, staring warily into the night. The dragon Kirv was circling the camp, and her great wings occasionally sent a blast of rapidly cooled air their way.

"Is something gonna happen pretty soon?" Ckkk asked.

"Jhha," Skrch said. "We're going to be attacked by a whole bunch of Undead."

"Oh." Ckkk and Vrawk shifted their feet in unison.

"So why are we worried?" Vrawk said after a second.

"Because we don't want to die," Skrch said.

"Oh." More foot-shifting. "So what do we do?"

Skrch blinked. This was the first time in her entire twenty-six years of life that one of her daughters had _ever _asked for instructions. Mostly she found herself screaming at them from a distance to stop doing something. Mostly she was too late.

"I heard Dev Blackstare say you can't kill them unless you hit their spine or their skull," Skrch said. "So try to do that. Watch out for anybody carrying a staff, because they can do magic. Don't get where they can reach you."

"Okay," Vrawk said.

"Wait," Trrilik spoke up. "You mean it's _okay _to kill them?"

"Today it is," Skrch said. "And only the ones that aren't oursThere will be more of them than us, so it should be easy to tell. But don't eat anybody. You never know what kind of nasties Undeads can give you._"_

_"_Worse than hyenas?" Serrw said.

Skrch sighed. "Jhha, Serrw. Worse than hyenas. Worse than _vultures._" This produced a chorus of _Ewws _from her offspring. "Does everybody understand?"

"Jhha, mother," Trrilik said.

"Jhha," Serrw said.

"Jhha."

"Jhha."

"Good girls," Skrch said.

"This is going to be so much fun!" said Serrw.


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Viri Starwater crouched on the ground beside Lord Marrowice, waiting. She still basked in his light, center of the dark universe behind her eyes, but now she could see more. _My mind is coming back to me. And with this anchor, I will not be moved again. _She still knew herself to be two things, but the Elven Huntress was giving way at last. Hadn't she lived out her two millenia and never really been alive?Had she not been looking, all that time, for something that would center her entire mediocre life?

_And now I have lost my life, and found my purpose._

Viri looked around. The dead of the camp shone, little green pinpoints, and each acolyte and Orcish heartbeat made a darker spot in the dark world. She could see the two bodies in the Temple of the Damned just beginning to glow.

And, if she concentrated very hard, she could sense the enemy. Points of sour-apple green, a little different from the ones around her, were closing in from the East. For the most part they were dim, but they were many. And there was one, a bright thing and a dark thing twined up together, like the necromancer Felwyn and the spirit who followed her. _But this is a living thing ruled by a dead one, not the other way about. A breathing man with no soul, and an evil soul with no breath._

"The death knight is coming, Lord Marrowice," Viri said.

"Yes," the Lich said. "It is just as well I pulled our scouts back in. We won't have any trouble seeing them coming, I'm afraid." The panels of his kilt swirled in the air around him, nervous as a spider's legs. "You heard me speaking to Nez the Small."

She had been out of his sight the entire time, and his hearing was no better than Human, but he knew. Viri smiled, very slightly, for the first time in ages.

"I did, Lord," she said.

"We'll defend the buildings while we can, but that will simply buy us time. I've already sent the acolytes and the wisps into the mine."

"We cannot retreat," Viri Starwater said. It was not a question.

"No," Phage Marrowice said. "If Lord Darkhallow seizes the well of Siblin Sawu, he'll be able to find us wherever we go. And he would take particular pains to do so. The Scourge did not expect us to survive – ahem, figuratively speaking - on our own."

A mournful howl drifted down the wind, then another.

"Here they come," Phage Marrowice said. His kilt settled around him as mana crackled up the panels, icy light twining about his skeletal arms. Viri saw it and heard it, but did not feel it. She had been magic-blind every since her death, though she had not realized fully what this meant until the day she helped to rescue Skrch's fledglings and the Orcish warlock hit her with a fireball. The scar of her death still split her face from one side to the other, but she had felt no burns and taken no marks.

She could see them now, the first of the enemy ghouls padding forward toward the stream in the dark. All around her, Viri heard the hiss as the necropolis and the ziggurats detected the presence of intruders. Green light filled the camp, and the thin mist the buildings gave off began to thicken around Viri's ankles as she stood up. The abominations stood in a crude formation in front of Lord Marrowice, surrounded by ghouls and the few skeletons Ner'zirhud had been able to create.

Above them, the wings of the dragon snapped wide with a sound like a very large umbrella being opened. The harpies called to each other in their own language, shrieking piercingly into the night air.

"He will not be able to use the coil against us," Viri said. "It is only effective against the living." She drew her two glaives from her belt. She had abandoned her cloak long ago.

"That's true," Phage Marrowice said, and his voice had taken on a strange echo as the pale aura expanded around him. "But the trouble with a runeblade is that it is also a very large sword."

---

"Here we go," said Nez the Small from up on top of the gold mine. She grabbed one of the oil-soaked rocks – best not to ask where the oil had come from, this being an Undead camp – and heaved it into the basket of the catapult. It was bigger than her head, but a peon who can't lift her own weight and more is a very useless peon indeed.

The warlock Shel'yin held his staff over the rock and muttered something. It obligingly caught fire, the oil sending up a smoky blaze.

"Um. Better stand back," Nez said. She didn't look to see if he was complying; she was busy looking for a target. The ghouls were on their way in past the ziggurats, and some of them were going down, but just as many were taking swipes at the towers before the fire engulfed them.

Behind them, hulking shapes swayed forward.

"Gotcha," Nez said, and shoved the catapult a fraction left. Then she slammed her fist down on the lever. The burning rock lofted satisfyingly into the air. Nez frowned as she watched its landing. The abominations didn't seem to be trying to get out of the way. In fact, though the rock completely smashed the head of one and splashed burning oil on the others, they just kept staggering forward.

The one with the crushed head stayed down, at least.

"Nether," Nez muttered. "Um. Got another rock?"

"Fortunately, yes," said Shel'yin son of Vel'yen.

---

"All right, krrrahk," Skrch said. "Remember what I told you, and stay close. Don't go charging off out there, Jhha?"

"Jhha, Jhha," the fledglings said. All of their head feathers were standing up as they danced from foot to foot, more excited than afraid.

_Just like always, _Skrch thought, and wasn't sure if she should be sad or proud of them. She shrugged, spread her wings, and swept out over the fray. All the enemy's ghoul frontrunners were... Well, _more _dead, she supposed, having fallen foul of towers, flaming rocks, and the dragon Kirv, who was coasting back and forth between the wreck of the ziggurats by the stream. A few globs of something unspeakable came flying out from further back in the Scourge lines, but the great reptile shrugged off some and avoided the rest. The skeleton Gray seemed to have got hold of a bow somewhere and was practicing a fairly slipshod form of archery.

"Watch out for those two!" Skrch called. Serrw was already busy extracting her foot-talons from an abomination's skull. Ckkk dropped a golden ring of mana onto a zombie. The dead Human stopped in place, swaying, and Vrawk tore its head off. Black gore bubbled up from the stump as it toppled over.

"Scrrr, there's a lot of them," Trrilik said from beneath Skrch. She shrieked a curse as purple mana shot from her foot-talons. It struck another zombie, which began flailing wildly. One of Lord Marrowice's ghouls pounced on it almost at once, only to be borne down by five more.

"Scrrr agh," Skrch muttered, and cast a cyclone into the middle of the group that was now pouring into the camp. Abominations, and a lot of zombies, and... "Look out!" she shrieked, and jinked sideways in the air as a bloody glob flew past her at high speed.

"Meat wagons!" someone shouted from below.

Something else shot past going the other way, and a cold wind ruffled Skrch's feathers as she blinked in the white glare. Instinct made her dodge again, and she managed to mostly avoid the next shot from the wagons. A shard of bone buried itself in her right calf. Skrch snarled, but bit her tongue as she looked around for the fledglings. Ckkk and Vrawk's strategy was still working, it seemed, but every time they took down one zombie two more were taking a swipe at them. And Trrilik...

Trillik was on the ground, trying to run away from an abomination. One of her wings was soaked in black gore from the meat wagon, bent at an odd angle. She was cursing virulently in Saark, but her mana was gone, and the Undead creature lumbered after her with dreadful purpose.

Skrch folded her wings and dove, but inside her stomach was sinking. The abomination's growling pursuit had attracted others, and she knew even as she felt her claws hit its face (which hurt her leg again, but there was no time to think about that) that it would not be enough. She could heal, but the wing would have to be put straight before her daughter could fly, and with more and more dead men charging forward all the time they would be run under before they got off the ground again.

She stood on the ground between her fledgling and the dead, wing talons spread. _No more mana. No more time._

She _should _just take off and leave Trrilik, whispered the harpy part of her that was never further forward than at times like this. _I'll have more fledglings. Lots of them._

"But none of them will be Trrilik," Skrch said, and stood her ground.

Then the wolf Daysleeper shot in from her left, and Dev Blackstare was among the Scourge like... Skrch had never seen a weasel in a henhouse. Her thought was _like a fledgling in a bunch of zhevras._

Krrrahk were killers straight from the shell, but nobody ever _trained _them to do it. No harpy has ever wielded a sword. Dev Blackstare had been holding a scimitar since she was big enough to pick it up, and fighting half the people she met almost from birth. She fought with a deadly economy of motion completely alien to Skrch. One moment she would lean so far that Skrch thought she must fall out of the saddle, and it would turn out that was just far enough for Daysleeper to take a swipe with his claws on one side while she hacked at a zombie on the other. She'd been surrounded by a lot of dead centaurs the first time they met, but Skrch hadn't given that much thought 'til now.

But now wasn't the time to be thinking about the past. Skrch pulled up her mana as she whirled and seized Trrilik's broken wing, ignoring her daughter's wail of pain. She forced the bones straight at the same instant she cast her spell, and watched the skin knit over the white bone as it joined together.

Trrilik screamed, but she didn't struggle.

"Good girl," Skrch whispered, and pulled her fledgling tight against her side as the healing finished itself. "Now get your sisters and get into that mine. Quick."

"Jhha!" Trrilik sniffled, and turned and shot off.

Skrch leaped from the ground, beating her wings. Dev was already surrounded by the formerly Undead, now completely dead, but others were climbing over the pile. A good half of Lord Marrowice's ghouls were gone now, and the Undeads seemed to be retreating toward the gold mine.

"Come on, Warrior!" Skrch shouted in Orcish. "Time to go!"

Dev might or might not have heard her, but Daysleeper did. The wolf took a last snap at an abomination that was trying to gut him, then turned and bounded toward Skrch's position. The dead came on, and behind them Skrch could just see the spiky outlines of the wagons. She called up her last reserve of mana, shot another cyclone into the middle of them, and flapped off after the Orc and the wolf.


	36. Chapter 36

Chapter 36

Caden the Crooked began the battle standing with the abominations, the little harpy clinging to his pauldroned shoulder.

"Don't you get a sword or something?" Knnr said.

"I guess not," Caden said. He watched dully as the first enemy ghouls began to hurl themselves at the ziggurats, defying the dragon's fire. It would be over that much faster, he supposed. The creatures that surrounded him were armed with crude clubs, and one seemed to have some kind of rusty blade that had already broken off near the hilt, but no one had given him a weapon.

"Well, _that's _not fair," Knnr said. "You don't even have claws. Hang on, I'll get you something." She took off, her talons pushing at his shoulder as she leaped into the air. He watched her swoop down over the remains of a ziggurat as the abominations around him began to lumber forward toward the stream, responding to the destruction of the defenses. Off to the left, other harpies were gliding down toward the approaching foe.

Contrary to all probability, Knnr came back carrying a long, pointed object in her claws. Caden held out his hands, and she dropped it into them.

"Here," she said. "Maybe it will cut up your hands a little, but it's better than nothing."

The dead man examined his new weapon. It was a long shard of obsidian, obviously thrown off from a ziggurat as it gave up the ghost.

"Thanks," he said.

"No problem," Knnr said. "Whoops, here they come."

Three ghouls had made it past the abominations and were headed straight for him, baring their long teeth as they ran silently forward. Caden frowned, trying to decide what to do -

And he was looking down at three dead ghouls. The shard _was _cutting his hand, he could feel the flesh parting, but black blood was dripping down its tip and it wasn't his.

"What - ?" he said, but he couldn't hear himself over the moans and howls as more enemy troops approached. Someone was throwing flaming rocks at them, but the enemy was hurling bits of corpses right back, and now he was facing down a solid wall of dead men.

He caught it as it happened this time. A black curtain dropped over his vision, and yet all he could see was light – green light here, outlining a zombie's body, and there around the jaws of a dead ghoul, growing dimmer. Everything seemed to be slowing down as he stepped forward, and suddenly he was in the middle of a crowd. He pivoted, and stabbed, and the shardblade cut as if it were the best steel ever made. Blows clanged off his armor, and all he had to do was turn his hunched shoulder to shield himself.

Zombies fell under the shard like grain beneath a scythe, black blood drenching Caden's hair and soaking him in its stench. _Put out the lights. _Dimly he heard Knnr calling something, but he couldn't understand the words. Steam seemed to be singeing his eyebrows, but pain could never reach him again. _Put out the lights. _There was green fire all around him, and he would extinguish it.

The long, dull wait was over. It was time to kill.

---

Phage Marrowice hovered in place, waiting for his mana to recharge. It seemed to be happening faster than usual; he had cast two frost novas almost in a row. He was trying to aim them toward the back of the approaching force, where he was sure Lord Darkhallow was, but even now he doubted they would travel so far. _At least he's not bothering with strategy, _Phage thought dryly. _He's just going to throw bodies at us until we go under._ No one had even bothered to try any kind of pincer, making the additional ziggurats to the North and South completely superfluous.

Viri Starwater was still near him, throwing glaives and catching them with ridiculous speed. She never seemed to miss. For that matter, it would be a challenge to avoid hitting anything nowThe enemy seemed to be approaching in a solid wall of reeking, moaning footsoldiers, not a spellcaster in sight.

Phage tried not to look at the ghouls. They were fighting hard, but they were being overrun by sheer numbers. It wrenched him every time he heard another one scream. _They can't feel pain. That's one comfort, _he told himself.

"It's time to fall back," he said, raising his voice to be heard over the sounds of Undead fighting Undead. "We can't hold them. I was a fool to try."

"Fall back!" Viri shouted, her ragged voice still easily piercing the background noise. "Back to the mine!"

Everyone around him began to retreat. Phage was a little surprised to see Fractalle glide past him, still hurling curses over her shoulder. As he passed the ziggurat, Phage turned for an instant to cast one last spell. The black dust of decay rose up around the structure, and it redoubled its hissing as bits of it began to cave away. Phage scooted backward, taken by surprise, and then Viri Starwater grabbed him around the spine and jerked him back just before the building imploded.

"That... Worked better than I expected," he said as she dragged him into the mine entrance. What was left of the footsoldiers followed them, and the three Orcs crowded in behind. The last one in was Caden the Crooked, who was being firmly pushed backward by a small harpy with both talons planted on his chest. He seemed to be trying to move forward, but Knnr's beating wings kept shoving him back. White pinpoints glowed in his steaming eyes.

"All right, everyone back from the doorway," Phage said. The dragon Kirv was already out of sight, heading for the horizon. Phage cast the decay on the stones one more time, and the walls and ceiling crumbled at the mine entrance, sealing everyone in the darkness.

The breathing of the Orcs suddenly seemed very loud as the dust settled. Phage turned to examine the - survivors? - as the light from his skull bathed them in a blue glow.

"Whoever is injured, go to the wisps and the acolytes," he said. "They are in the first chamber to your left. Those who can, begin reinforcing this area. It will take some time for them to dig in here, but they have no shortage of labor and we may have to defend an opening before the Orcs arrive."  
"I can heal," said the voice of the harpy queen from the back. "Come on, krrrahk."

"It's dark in here," complained a small harpy voice.

"And it smells bad," said another one.

"They're dead," Skrch's retreating voice explained patiently. "They can't help the way they smell."

Phage looked around again. A couple of the ghouls had staggered off, but most of the abominations were still with him. Fractalle hovered off to one side, almost tangible in the near-dark. None of the Orcs seemed to have taken a wound.

Caden the Crooked stood still now, blinking bewilderedly. The light in his eyes had died out. Dark blood ran down the fingers of his hand where it still gripped a long shard of shining black stone.

"Come on, Caden," Knnr said. "Let's go get your hand fixed." She settled on his shoulder and tugged at his soiled hair with a wing talon. "Ick. You need a bath again."

---

Ner'zirhud heard the grinding crash from inside the Temple.

"There's our signal," he said. "Herm. I hope this works."

Felwyn raised her head. "Hope what works?" she said.

"Oh, one of the books we found in the mounds had instructions for preparing a scroll of teleportation." Ner'zirhud pulled the roll of parchment from his belt and began to unroll it. "With any luck, when I read this we'll be transported to Lord Marrowice's location. It should take these two as well." He waved a hand at the two new Undead, who had mostly stopped screaming but were still struggling in their chains.

"So what happens if it doesn't work?" Lrfk said. She fanned her two tail points as she looked at him.

"I have no idea," Ner'zirhud said honestly. "Nothing might happen. We might arrive in our component parts. We might arrive in entirely the wrong place."

Lrfk covered her head with her wings.

"I'm sure it will work," Felwyn said calmly.

Ner'zirhud began to read. The scroll glowed briefly, and then a yellow glow shot up around the three living and the two dead. When it died down, the Temple of the Damned was empty.


	37. Chapter 37

Chapter 37

Lord Darkhallow surveyed the enemy camp, frowning. They had met with surprisingly little resistance. He had lost footsoldiers, particularly when the necropolis went up, but that was nothing. Thanks to the recent upsurge in road travel here and his raids on Crossroads, he had plenty more.

_Not enough bodies on the ground. _It was quite dark, but he could still tell that most of the casualties he saw were his own. The others seemed to consist of several ghouls and one abomination, now busily being devoured by his troops. _No Lich. No necromancers. No harpies._

Darkhallow glanced up as Gen'dirhil hurried toward him. The necromancer had stayed back near the meat wagons throughout the brief skirmish, and bar his robes being a little singed, appeared to be unharmed.

"Well?" the death knight said.

"I'm afraid the dragon escaped, Lord," Gen'dirhil said.

"So I saw," Darkhallow said. "I am not excessively concerned with the dragon. Where is the Lich?"

Gen'dirhil, by now thoroughly conditioned against hesitating, answered immediately. "Inside the gold mine, Lord. In fact, I believe all the survivors are there."

"Good. Pile up the entrance and leave them there to eat each other," Darkhallow said. "Have you found the Well?"

"I'm afraid so, Lord."

"And?"

"All of the buildings are destroyed now, and I was able to find no source of mana in the mounds nearby. My divinations indicate that the Well of Sib'lin Sawu is deep underground."

Lord Darkhallow considered this for a moment in silence. An observer would not have detected a change in his facial expression, but the faint mist that rose from the blade in his hand might be considered an ominous sign.

"Underground," he said flatly.

"Yes, Lord," Gen'dirhil said. A man more given to introspective thought than Darkhallow might, at this point, have wondered why he seemed so calm. "In fact, it is almost certainly beneath the gold mine."

"Which has only one entrance," Darkhallow said.

"As near as we have been able to tell, Lord."

"And which entrance is presently defended by all of our surviving enemies."

"Indeed, Lord," Gen'dirhil said. "And, given that they almost certainly planned something of this nature, they probably have laid in enough provisions to last some time. I merely speculate, of course, given that we have not yet questioned the prisoners - "

"_Silence."_ Gen'dirhil obediently closed his mouth. Darkhallow reminded himself forcibly that he could only raise a few dead at a time, and that his only necromancer would be very necessary if a long siege were ahead. Whitecleaver did not seem very amenable to this argument. The blade seemed to be trying to get away from him. He clenched both hands firmly around the pommel, bracing the point against the ground. There _was _power in the air, making the runeblade restless.

"Necromancer," Darkhallow said. "If you want to live out the next few minutes, you had better find me something to kill. Something _alive._"

"Yes, Lord," Gen'dirhil said. "Bring the prisoners!"

A banshee led a group of abominations from the direction of the gold mine. As they came closer, the group parted to reveal five people. Two of them were staggering along in heavy chains, hoods hiding their faces. One was a necromancer, almost indistinguishable from Gen'dirhil except that his beard was a little longer. And the other two...

"What have we here?" Darkhallow said.

"They were standing atop the gold mine," Gen'dirhil said. "Their escape spell appears to have backfired."

"I'm Felwyn Smallfinger," said the girl with the deer skull on her head. The headdress shadowed her face, mostly hiding her features, but her voice was very young. "This is Lrfk." The harpy perched atop the staff the girl carried, watching Darkhallow with an expression which did not appear to contain any gut-wrenching terror whatsoever.

"This Lich must be desperate for troops, to give a necromancer's robes to a child," Darkhallow said.

"She knows more than you ever will," the enemy necromancer said.

"How very uncharacteristic," Darkhallow said. "Gen'dirhil, pay close attention."

The runeblade snapped upward, spitting green fire. The necromancer shrieked as he was thrown backward to sprawl on the ground. Darkhallow inhaled deeply as the old man's life was sucked back down the thread the runeblade had created. The man was feeble. Whitecleaver took most of it, whining like a caged animal, starving for more.

Darkhallow became aware that Gen'dirhil was staring at him, and realized the hissing sound he'd just heard had come from his own lips.

"Thisssss is what happens when a necromancer tries to grow a spine," Darkhallow said. Gen'dirhil bowed his head, and said nothing.

The death knight turned his attention to the others. He dismissed the chained men from his attention without a second glance. They were walking dead – Whitecleaver did not incline toward them - and the man he had just killed could not possibly have brought them back with any kind of surviving brain. _Not even on the Well of Sib'lin Sawu._

"Now," Darkhallow said. "Tell me how many are inside the mine."

The girl spoke quietly, but there was no tremor in her voice as she told him of their number and their races.

"Orcs and harpies," Darkhallow said. "This – Marrowice, did you say? - has made some strange alliances. Gen'dirhil, start the digging. They will pose no problem when we face them in our numbers."

"Yes, Lord," Gen'dirhil said, and went away.

"You were quick to betray your Lord," Darkhallow said. "Yet I sense that you do not fear me as you ought."

The girl raised her head. Her scars were barely visible in the dark, but the blue eye with the red gleam was very easily seen. "We have not betrayed him," she said.

"What we tell you won't matter," said the harpy. "It won't change anything."

"It may change whether you live or die," Darkhallow said. "Or... What happens between now and then." He came closer, and the abominations moved awkwardly back to give him space as he walked forward. He reached out to seize the girl's chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her head back. "You know that I may do as I please with both of you."

"You can kill us," Felwyn Smallfinger said.

"But that's all," said the harpy.

Darkhallow snarled. His backhand slap knocked them both flying. The harpy righted herself in midair, unfazed. The girl sat up slowly as she shook her head. Her headdress had fallen off, revealing her scars more clearly.

"The blade is your soul," the harpy said. "It owns you."

"All it wants," the girl said, and shook her head again. "All it wants is lives. So lives are all _you _want. Lrfk?"

The harpy settled on the ground and offered Felwyn a taloned hand. The sight of the small creature easily levering the Human upright was a comical one, but it was lost on Darkhallow.

"But I may choose the manner of your death," Darkhallow said. "How came you by those scars, Felwyn Smallfinger?"

"In dragon fire," Felwyn said. One side of her face was already swelling, beginning to darken into a bruise where his gauntlet had struck. Whitecleaver muttered impatiently, but Darkhallow was able to quell it. _Wait._

"But dragon fire is quick. Would you like to know what it is like to burn slowly?" Darkhallow said. "To die by inches, over long hours?"

"You're too impatient for that," the harpy said. "You'd kill us after the first few minutes."

"It doesn't matter," the girl said. She was still entirely too calm for Darkhallow's taste. He had expected defiance, or anger at the very least. "You're going to die."

"You all are," Lrfk said. "Even most of the already-dead ones."  
"Oh?" Darkhallow said. "And how do you know that, little one?"

"We see it," Felwyn said.

"Also, you're about to be attacked by about forty Orcs," Lrfk said.

"And what can forty Orcs do against a hundred Undead?"

"I don't know," the harpy said. "But I'm looking forward to seeing it. Aren't you, Felwyn?"

"Yes," the girl said. "And I think Mir'noj is, too."

"And who exactly is - "

Lord Darkhallow was interrupted by the first fireball. It flew down from the clifftop above the camp and incinerated an abomination that stood not five feet from him. The scarlet glow lit the scene, fully illuminating the beautific smile on the face of Felwyn Smallfinger.

"Kill them all!" Darkhallow hissed, and turned and ran for his horse.


	38. Chapter 38

Chapter 38

The four abominations began to close in, apparently taking the knight's last command in the most literal way possible.

"Sleep," Lrfk said, and a puff of blue black mana shot out from her wings. All four abominations froze in place, swaying. The banshee opened her mouth to shriek a curse, then stopped with her mouth open as the wave of dark mana struck her. She rotated in the air and began to float belly-up, like a dead fish.

All around them, zombies stood still, utterly silent. Others were rushing toward the edges of the camp, seeking the Orcs who continued sniping, but the necromancer, the ghost and the harpy were surrounded by a great ring of the dormant dead. Their own new Undead slept also, passive in their chains.

"That worked better than I expected," Lrfk said.

Mir'noj let go of her tail feather. He was not visible in the dark, but Felwyn felt a puff of breath on her neck as he spoke. "It will not be enough."

"That's all right," Felwyn said. "There's more." She let go of the staff and raised both hands. (Mir'noj seized the staff before it could hit the ground. He was always careful not to let the skull get broken.) The power was there, and now she reached out for it again. It bled up from the earth, cold as ice as it flowed into her feet and upwards. A thin rope of mana began to rise from each of her hands. One glowed blue, from her right hand where Lrfk hovered. One was black, from the hand beside which Mir'noj stood.

"Death," Mir'noj whispered.

"And the Storm," Lrfk said. The two lines shot upward and coiled around each other, growing and thickening and spinning ever faster. The ends began to split, a multiplicity of lines reaching over and down toward every sleeping enemy.

Felwyn Smallfinger knew very few words of power. Ner'zirhud – and she had to step down very hard on this thought, to keep it from breaking her concentration - had not had time to teach her all he knew. So when she felt the lines touch down, a sensation as if each hand had a thousand fingers, all she said was:

_"Yes."_

It was enough.

---

Up on the clifftop, Veren Redmorning shouted to be heard over the hum of rising power. "Don't kill her! She's one of ours!"

Beside him, Kev'ran shot another fireball down into the camp proper. The zombie it struck was burnt to ashes. This was a very good thing, given that so far the zombies were not proving easily discouraged by having organs pierced or limbs lopped off.

"What spell is she using?" Redmorning said.

"I do not know," Kev'ran shouted back. "It is nothing I have ever seen."

Redmorning opened his mouth to ask something else, but he never remembered what it was. Below him, the blue-black light grew so bright it was blinding, and then there was... No, not a sound, because he was sure his ears did not hear anything. But there was a vibration under his feet and a feeling inside his skull, a _whummm _like a million angry bees.

At that point Dib Loudwhisper shoved him to the ground, so he was already down when the shock wave hit.

---

The effect was felt inside the gold mine as well. Lord Marrowice wobbled in the air, and Viri Starwater caught him before he overbalanced completely. Around him, the other Undead stumbled as well, steadying themselves against the walls. The abominations mumbled, uncomprehending. Viri seemed to be the only one who was not visibly staggered.

"What was that, Lord?" she said.  
"I have no idea," he said. _My ears can't be popping. I don't have any._ "But I don't think it's anything of Lord Darkhallow's devising, do you?"

In the dim blue light, Viri cocked her head. "There are more heartbeats than before," she said. "I believe they are Orcs."

"Then let's get out of here," said Phage Marrowice.

---

Rokhyel Shadebreaker rose cautiously to his feet. He had not lost his grasp on his sword. He never did, and the fact that he did not sleep only made this a little easier. Around him, zombies struggled to drag themselves upright. Some of them seemed to be decaying as he watched, shreds of rotten flesh squelching on the ground as they moved.

A glaive flew out of the dark and decapitated two of them on its parabolic flight. Shadebreaker watched without moving as it whirred straight toward him. He was not at all surprised when it seemed to be caught by a patch of empty night air. Glaive faded into view as she padded closer.

"Hey, dead man," she said. "You still one piece?"

"Yes," he said. He did not ask if Glaive was all right. Anything else seemed inconceivable, and besides, he would know if she were not. Only her death could break the thread that stretched between them.

"Good. 'S going on?" the Elf said.

"Magic," Shadebreaker said. He turned to look down the rocky slope toward the center of the camp proper, where three bodies now lay inert. Around them, shreds of zombie flesh rained down out of the air, making wet _squush _noises. "They may still be alive. I suspect the Chieftain would rather we keep them that way."

"They blow up fifty zombies one time, not need too much help," Glaive said. She threw the weapon again, eliminating three zombies without looking. The others were staggering in their direction. Glaive caught the triple blade as she looked around. "But you probably right. You see big Human on a dead horse?"

"Where?" Shadebreaker said.

"Gold mine," Glaive said. "Got runeblade."

"I see him," Shadebreaker said. The blade glowed in the dark, and besides, the stink of death mana was very strong. _Even here. Marrowice's people are already developing a mana apart from the Scourge's. _

"That new knight," Glaive said. "Pretty strong. And you maybe got new pretty face, but you old."

"Yes," Shadebreaker said. "But he is a death knight, and so am I. Leave him to me."

"You say so," Glaive said, and scampered off down the hill. After a second she was invisible. Rokhyel Shadebreaker turned toward the gold mine. He had to hack down a few zombies to get there. It felt strange to strike with the blade instead of casting spells, but he could not throw the coil over the dead. They were slower than usual, disoriented, and it was not difficult. In a few moments he could see the death knight clearly. He was not an old man in his carriage or his bearing, but his face was drawn and his hair was white. The long strands were lank, outshone by the runeblade in his hand. It glowed in the darkness as black tendrils of mana coiled and uncoiled around it.

"Knight of the Scourge," Shadebreaker said.

The death knight turned in his saddle. His eyes were dark, sucking in the light. "Just who and what are _you? _Speak, fool."

"I am a death knight. My name is Rokhyel Shadebreaker."

"Really." The other knight frowned, pale brows drawn down over his black sockets. "Yet I note that you carry no runeblade. In fact, that is the sorriest excuse for a sword I have ever seen."

Shadebreaker hefted the rusty blade up onto one shoulder. "I was a knight for the Horde," he said. "During the Tides of Darkness."

"Neither do you seem to be sixty years old. Nor a skeleton," the other knight said. He raised the runeblade in ironic salute. "Whitecleaver, however, says that you are indeed a dead man. Call yourself what you like. I am the Lord of Darkhallow, and I will annihilate you."

"Then come," said Rokhyel Shadebreaker. Darkhallow spurred his skeletal steed forward. It balked, and threw him off. He rolled to his feet, swearing, as the dead horse ran away.

"I hate that horse," he growled.

"They are notoriously unreliable," Shadebreaker said.

"Shut up and die," said Darkhallow, and swung the runeblade. It hissed through the air like a hot iron through water, and the knight swung it far too quickly for a man holding a weapon heavier than some people. Shadebreaker was hard put to drag the sword off his shoulder in time to parry. The heavy runeblade struck the rusty sword traveling fast enough to decapitate an ogre.

Shadebreaker was driven a step back by the impact of steel on steel, but the old blade held. The tendrils of black power reached like tentacles from the runeblade, searching the surface, but they found no purchase in the pitted metal.

"An interesting trick," Darkhallow said. He betrayed no sign of effort, though the pressure he was exerting was tremendous. Shadebreaker twisted sideways to disengage, then had to step back quickly to prevent himself from being disemboweled. The runeblade sliced right through his chain mail as if it were paper, but it did not touch him.

"You are stronger than I am," Shadebreaker said. "And quick. But that blade is cursed. It will undo you."

"And what kind of blade is _that?"_ The new knight swung again, but the Shadebreaker was ready this time. He leaned far to one side, ducking the blade, and jabbed straight forward. Darkhallow was forced to jump backward. For all his strength, the runeblade was still too heavy to treat like a rapier.

"This is an Undead blade," Shadebreaker said. "Part of my soul is in it, as part of the Lich King's is in that one."

"Then you cannot possibly do other than fail," Darkhallow said. He backed slowly away. Shadebreaker did not move to follow him, but watched.

"The difference is that this soul is my own," Shadebreaker said.

Darkhallow jerked the blade out in front of him. A mass of black tendrils shot down its length, and Shadebreaker cast his own coil just as the other knight's struck him. Black light flared, then died away.

Lord Darkhallow opened his mouth as if to speak, but only a hiss came out. His armor clattered as he fell heavily to his knees, then onto his face. He did not get up. Rokhyel Shadebreaker felt the thread break as the life left him.

"You forgot," Shadebreaker said. "The coil only works on the living."


	39. Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Early the next morning, the druid Eyrilus glided into view of where the Orcs' village had been. He circled for a few moments, surveying the evidences of hasty removal. _No battle was here, but they have gone._ He suspected he knew where. The great crow turned toward the northwest, where Lord Marrowice's camp must be. (Was that smoke he saw, rising on the morning wind?) He was entirely sure the Orcs and the Undead would stay firm in alliance, as he had said in his now complete and entirely final report.

Yes, the report. Eyrilus sighed inwardly, because this is rather difficult for a crow to do in flight. Priestess Fallingrain had not been happy to hear what he had to say, and she had been entirely too accurate in her guesses regarding his reasons, but in the end she had accepted it. Unless he was forced to meet them in war, he was free of the Sentinels.

And now...

Now he had an apology to make, if he could find the person to whom he wished to make it. Eyrilus beat his wings harder, the morning sun warm on his back as he neared the camp proper.

The camp was gone. Not a single building remained, only scorched circles showing where structures had been. The ground was littered with bodies, and a great stench rose from the blighted earth below. Vultures circled straight ahead of him, dodging around the dragon that kept snapping at them irritably, and some of the vultures were being chased by...

"Krrrahk?" Eyrilus called.

Four little harpies surrounded him an instant later, circling dizzily in the air.

"Eyrilus!"

"Hi, Eyrilus! You missed the big battle. I got my wing broken but Mother fixed it."

"There was a whole _bunch _of zombies but now they're all gone."

"I killed more zombies than _you, _Ckkk."

"You did not."

"Did too."

"Did not!"

"Where is your mother?" Eyrilus asked, but then a blast of hot air nearly knocked him sideways, and Skrch was there.

"So you came back," she said. "You've got a lot of explaining to do, Mister Druid."

"Yes," Eyrilus said. "I do. Perhaps we could land on the clifftop?"

Skrch eyed him for a second. "Sure," she said. "But you better talk fast."

---

Glaive sat on her heels, watching Felwyn Smallfinger wake up. She recognized the necromancer, and the small harpy who was even now prodding her shoulder in an attempt to rouse her. The unconscious Human with the big hooked nose was unfamiliar, but Glaive supposed she could kill him if he turned out to be someone who didn't belong.

Felwyn sat up, blinking at the ring of headless zombies and assorted parts which lay around them. A dark bruise marked the unscarred half of her face.

"Ner'zirhud?" she said.

"He old?" Glaive said. "Got staff and funny hat?"

"Yes," said the Human. She looked around again. "Where is he?"

"Nothing left of him now," Glaive said. "Ghouls pretty hungry after big battle."

"No body," the harpy said. "No bringing him back."

"Maybe not," said Felwyn Smallfinger. She caught sight of the other Human. "Mir'noj?"

"Hey, look," said the harpy. She hopped over and poked experimentally at the man's shoulder. He twitched. "He's almost solid. Are you alive, Mir'noj?"

"I don't believe so," the man said, and sat up. In the bright sun he seemed a little translucent, like a Night Elf moving in the shade. As Glaive watched, he grew more so, fading to near-invisibility.

"I think it worked," said the harpy. "Looks like the Orcs took care of the rest of them."

"Sure," Glaive said. "Orcs not too worried 'bout fifty to forty odds. 'Specially when one of them is me. You gonna live?"

"Yes," said Felwyn Smallfinger.

"Good," said Glaive, and rose smoothly to her feet. She had seen Shadebreaker just a minute ago, and she had yet to tell him exactly how many zombies she had killed in the last hour and a half.

---

"I suppose we will have to resummon everything now," Phage Marrowice said. He hovered beside Veren Redmorning in front of the gold mine. Viri crouched next to him, trading impassive looks with the Orc's two bodyguards as she translated for him. Behind him, acolytes and peons and ghouls moved in and out, shifting rubble.

"Of course, if you plan to settle here, that is just as well," said Phage. "There would not have been room, before."

"I think a joint settlement would benefit both our peoples," Viri rendered Redmorning's answer. "But if you'd rather not, we could settle somewhere nearby. Our diviners can always find water."

"Oh, no, by all means," said Lord Marrowice. "Though I'm afraid all we can contribute is gold, really. There aren't many of us, especially not now."

"You'll have more," Redmorning said. "I've always supposed that would be one of the benefits of leading the Undead. You can always recruit."

"I... suppose we can," Lord Marrowice said. "There are often battles outside Crossroads. Casualties are inevitable. And Caden the Crooked has already proven himself quite an asset."

"Caden the Crooked? The big blond Human in the black armor? The one with the harpy chattering in his ear all the time?"

"Yes, I believe that is Knnr. The harpies seem to be very comfortable here."

"Everywhere, I think," Redmorning said. "It seems to be one of Skrch's gifts that she's managed to pass on."

"Indeed. We are in her debt."

The Orc and the Lich watched the harpies and the crow circling down toward the cliff top. Far above them, the dragon's wings created an intermittent shade. Eventually, Redmorning asked another question.

"The Chieftain asks how we ever ended up with a skeleton riding a dragon," said Viri.

"Hm? Oh, an interesting story, that. We found Gray in one of these old Human mounds and he persisted rather well, for a skeleton. And one particular banshee always seemed... Fond of him..." Phage paused, struck by a thought and a memory.

"Fractalle?" he said.

The banshee paused on her way past them. "Yes, Lord?"

"You recall that book you were reading? The journal of Sib'lin Sawu?"

"I fear it was destroyed with the necropolis, Lord," said Fractalle.

"Never mind that. Where was it found?"

"In one of the mounds," she said. "It was laid on the breast of one of the skeletons."

"And what happened to that skeleton?" Phage said.

"I imagine it was resurrected by Ner'zirhud," said the banshee. "Though I fear we will not be able to ask him, now."

"Alas, no. Thank you, Fractalle." He watched the banshee glide away. There was no chance of an answer to his question, then. But... It was an odd set of coincidences, all the same.

"Sawu would surely be buried with his own journal," Phage said aloud. "And the body of a necromancer would no doubt produce an unusual skeleton. And... the dragon Kirv was possessed by a banshee..."

Redmorning spoke without waiting for Viri to translate. She rendered his remark as, "Shel'yin's been telling me these banshees of yours were Elves, once."

"Indeed," Phage Marrowice said. "And it is written that Sib'lin Sawu loved an Elf."

Both of them stared up at the dragon.

"Surely it couldn't have been the same one?" said Veren Redmorning.

"I suppose we will never know," said Phage Marrowice.


	40. Chapter 40

Chapter 40

Two dead men stood at the edge of the camp, watching the work. The Orcs assumed they belonged and paid them no mind, and the one single abomination that now patrolled in a confused circle seemed to do likewise.

One was much taller than the other, and tiny lights circled his white eyes. The shorter man still held a hood clenched in one hand, because after he tore it off he had not thought to drop it. Both were still in some considerable pain, but its impact was growing less.

They had last awakened to find themselves in the midst of complete confusion, rotten flesh raining down from the sky, and they had done the only logical thing under the circumstances. Their flight had been limited by their chains, but a few zombies who were trying to tear them to shreds had managed to get those off, and after that...

Neither was quite sure what had happened after that. Anyway, the zombies seemed to be gone now. They did not know quite what to do, now that the fear and the pain were not in the forefront of their minds. Neither had a strong will to self-annihilation, for the zombies had quickly cured them of any such impulse. Neither had any desire to keep running into the strange and barren land around them.

In fact, both of them were wondering what to do when the acolyte Variel Slowburn glided imperiously up to them both and demanded,

"Why are you just standing there? Go... Go carry rocks or something!"

The two dead men looked at each other, and at the small Human in the tattered robe. Then they turned and went to help the ghouls haul rocks.

In the end, it doesn't matter if you're alive or if you're dead, or what you look like, or even how you smell. What matters is that you belong.

---

Work went on. Dev Blackstare managed to wangle her way onto a patrol, and started her circuit of the camp environs with some relief. She hated the insides of caves, she decided, almost as much as she hated warlocks. In fact, male Orcs in general were starting to really annoy -

A massive gray arm shot out in front of her at chest level, knocking her straight backwards. She hit the ground on her back with an _oof. _Dev rolled to her feet, shaking her head as she tried to reinflate her lungs. Daysleeper stood a yard or so away, watching with tolerant amusement.

"Okay," she growled, drawing her scimitar. "Whoever that was, you'd better start running, 'cause otherwise you have about five seconds to live."

"Sorry, Blackstare. Always been a lousy runner," said a voice. She turned to see a stocky grunt standing beside the dirt track. He'd already doffed his shoulder armor, revealing the long scar on his left bicep. As she watched, he carefully removed his helmet, shaking out his short braid.

"Gibad Fallsharder?" Dev said. She got slowly to her feet, looking the grunt up and down. "You serious?"

"As I ever was," Fallsharder said.

Dev surveyed him narrowly. "You don't even know me," she said.

The grunt shrugged his powerful shoulders. "You can fight. You can scout. You can talk to harpies and Undeads. Mebbe I don't stack up to that too well, but I figured it was worth a try."

Dev considered him for a moment. She didn't know Fallsharder, but she knew _about _him. If there was anything raiders loved to talk about, it was grunts. _Steady. Honest. Strong._

"I hear you never took anybody from the Clan," she said. "And some of them were more than willing."

"Yeah," Fallsharder said. "But none of 'em was the right one."

"And I am."

"Yeah," said Fallsharder firmly.

"So why right now?"

"Weird times we're in," the grunt said. "Moving in with the dead. Fighting with Humans. And, for all we know, we could have the Horde down on our backs before the spring rain. Time like that, anything could happen, so I figured I better not wait."

"So you've been planning this," Dev realized. "For how long?"

"Oh, months," said Fallsharder. "But then Redback started talking and I figured I better wait. I wouldn't want an Orc who'd want Redback."

"Yeah, me neither," said Dev. Fallsharder snorted.

"So whaddaya say, Dev Blackstare? You gonna cut me, or you gonna hit back?"

Dev sheathed the scimitar. "What the Nether," she said. "Let's give it a try."

Then she punched him in the head.

---

"So _that's _why you kept disappearing when Redmorning was around," Skrch said. "You weren't a deserter. You were a spy."

"I am afraid so," said Eyrilus. He stood on the cliff beside her, now in his Elf form. The krrrahk had gotten bored and wandered off to play, and they were essentially alone. "But I have given my last report. I will never return to Ashenvale."

"And how am I supposed to believe you?" Skrch said. "You were a liar before. How do I know you're not now?"

Eyrilus looked down at the camp. "You cannot," he said. "Over time, I hope to prove it to you. All I dare ask is that you give me the opportunity to do so."

"And what about that thing with that other queen?" Skrch said. "If me killing things is going to be a problem, you might as well take off right now, 'cause I'm going to have to sooner or later. I'm a harpy. It's what we do."

"I understand that," Eyrilus said. "I have always understood it. But... Why did you tear her heart out?"

"Respect," Skrch said.

The Elf turned to look down at her. "What?"

"Respect. She was a queen, and so am I. If I'd left it, it would've been like saying she didn't matter. Like she was too weak to bother making sure she was dead," Skrch said. "I thought everybody knew that."

"No," Eyrilus said. "I did not. Elves do not mutilate their dead enemies. It is a desecration."

"One too many big Elvish words there," Skrch said.

"Never mind. In any case, I believe I understand now. I was too quick to judge."

"Elves are like that," Skrch said. "Or there wouldn't be harpies to begin with. Wanna fly around for a while?"

"Yes," said Eyrilus.

Skrch took off. A moment later, the giant crow glided up beside her, catching the backdraft from her red wings. Below them, the krrrahk were playing tag with the ghouls again, dashing in and out on the ground among the bustle of the new settlement being built. Once in a while one of them would speak to a passing Orc. Not a single one tried to kill one of her sisters, or anyone else.

"It's a pretty good start, anyhow," said Skrch.

"Jhha," said Eyrilus, in very passable Saark. "It is."

Epilogue

As the night began to fall, Felwyn Smallfinger stood on the roof of a brand new Temple of the Damned. The stench of corruption was a little less, and a wind was beginning to spring up, bringing with it the distant smell of rain. Lrfk shifted from foot to foot on the staff.

"The wind is changing," said Mir'noj.

"Yes," said Felwyn. And the necromancer stood with life at one hand and death at the other, and she said:

_There is more to the grave than an ending_

_There is more to the battle than strife_

_And what rises from chaos and death and the storm_

_Is the red-feathered phoenix called Life._

THE END

Author's Note:

Whew! This was a fun project, but it went on far longer than I originally planned. This is an important lesson in the difficulty of keeping a story short when the cast is so large.

This marks the end of the Unlikely Heroes stories. If any of you wonderful Warcraft folks get into The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, you may next expect to find me writing in that category. (Since it's not a category yet, I may even be the first one.)

Thanks for all the reviews, and thank you once again for being such a great reading audience.

_SickleYield_


End file.
